IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/abacus/v51y2015i4p525-535.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting Research and Common Sense

Author

Listed:
  • James A. Ohlson

Abstract

type="main"> The paper identifies some basic shortcomings of contemporary accounting research. Aside from issues related to how researchers pick topics—they are generally too remote from pre-existing realities—the main points concern the standard paradigm: explaining a dependent variable Y in terms of X, the primary variable of interest, while controlling for Z. The paper argues that just because the t-statistic related to X is significant does not mean that X helps to explain Y. To address this issue requires a goodness-of-fit analysis that evaluates the incremental contribution of X. Such tests can show that X effectively acts as noise though X's t-statistic is significant. Incremental goodness-of-fit analyses would potentially have dramatic consequences on research because rejection of the null would now take place much less often. The paper also considers problems associated with ordinary least squares, with specific emphasis on the scaling of dollar amount variables in linear cross-sectional settings.

Suggested Citation

  • James A. Ohlson, 2015. "Accounting Research and Common Sense," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 51(4), pages 525-535, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:51:y:2015:i:4:p:525-535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/abac.12059
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Clatworthy, Mark A. & Peel, Michael J., 2021. "Reporting accountant appointments and accounting restatements: Evidence from UK private companies," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    2. Stewart Jones & Murray Wells, 2015. "Accounting Research: Where Now?," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 51(4), pages 572-586, December.
    3. Juana Aledo Martínez & Juan Manuel García Lara & María T. González Pérez & Christos A. Grambovas, 2020. "An empirical assessment of proposed solutions for resolving scale problems in value relevance accounting research," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 3905-3933, December.
    4. Chen, Xiaomeng Charlene & Jones, Stewart & Hasan, Mostafa Monzur & Zhao, Ruoyun & Alam, Nurul, 2023. "Does strategic deviation influence firms’ use of supplier finance?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Jae H. Kim, 2022. "Moving to a world beyond p-value," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 16(8), pages 2467-2493, November.
    6. Jae H. Kim & Kamran Ahmed & Philip Inyeob Ji, 2018. "Significance Testing in Accounting Research: A Critical Evaluation Based on Evidence," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 54(4), pages 524-546, December.
    7. James A. Ohlson, 2022. "Researchers’ data analysis choices: an excess of false positives?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 649-667, June.
    8. Wai Fong Chua, 2022. "Matters of concern and engaged research," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(4), pages 4615-4627, December.
    9. Ehalaiye, Dimu & Tippett, Mark & van Zijl, Tony, 2017. "The predictive value of bank fair values," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 111-127.
    10. Rajat Deb, 2019. "Accounting Theory Coherence Revisited," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 44(1), pages 36-57, February.
    11. Jones, Stewart & Wang, Tim, 2019. "Predicting private company failure: A multi-class analysis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 161-188.
    12. Johnstone, David, 2022. "Accounting research and the significance test crisis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    13. Thomas R. Dyckman & Stephen A. Zeff, 2019. "Important Issues in Statistical Testing and Recommended Improvements in Accounting Research," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-11, May.
    14. Stewart Jones & Nurul Alam, 2019. "A machine learning analysis of citation impact among selected Pacific Basin journals," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 59(4), pages 2509-2552, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:51:y:2015:i:4:p:525-535. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0001-3072 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.