In this 50th anniversary year for Accounting and Business Research, I am pleased to introduce the 15th issue of the International Accounting Policy Forum (IAPF) – the annual special issue of ABR. The first four academic papers in this issue are based on presentations from the 2019 ICAEW Information for Better Markets conference. The fifth and final paper formed the basis of the 2019 P.D. Leake Lecture. ‘The real effects of financial reporting’was the overriding theme for the Information for Better Markets conference. Recognising that existing financial reporting research focuses predominantly on the impact of financial reporting on share prices, the presenters and conference delegates were challenged to explore the theme from a different perspective and consider the ways in which financial reporting drives behaviour and influences the decisions taken by management and users. In doing so, the broader effects that these behaviours and decisions have on the economy and society were also explored. Acknowledging that innovation is essential to retaining long-term competitive advantage and that financial reporting encourages investment that facilitates this innovation, the first of the four academic papers considers the real effects of financial reporting on innovation. Finding limited research in this area, Ana Simpson and Ane Tamayo offer a new framework for thinking about issues related to innovation and associated disclosures. In the second paper, ‘Reporting matters: the real effects of financial reporting on financing and investment decisions’, Catherine Shakespeare finds that financial reporting affects behaviour, for example, management using accounting rules to structure transactions to achieve certain financial statement outcomes. The paper also offers interesting insights from a relatively new stream of research which explores the relationship between accounting and macroeconomic outputs. John Core’s paper on ‘The real effects of financial reporting on pay and incentives’ explores the relationship between earnings and incentives and finds that when complexity is introduced into calculations used to value certain pay components, such as options and post-employment benefits, it can lead to mis-measurement. Using the example of pay components being underexpensed, the author suggests that managers might adopt these types of components in order to inflate earnings, concluding that if pay is mis-measured, it can also be mis-used.

中文翻译：

---

介绍

在会计与商业研究 50 周年之际，我很高兴地介绍第 15 期国际会计政策论坛（IAPF）——ABR 的年度特刊。本期前四篇学术论文基于 2019 年 ICAEW Information for Better Markets 会议的演讲。第五篇也是最后一篇论文构成了 2019 年 PD Leake 讲座的基础。“财务报告的实际影响”是“改善市场信息”会议的首要主题。认识到现有的财务报告研究主要侧重于财务报告对股价的影响，演讲者和会议代表面临着从不同角度探索主题的挑战，并考虑财务报告推动行为并影响管理层和用户做出的决定的方式。在此过程中，还探讨了这些行为和决策对经济和社会的更广泛影响。承认创新对于保持长期竞争优势至关重要，并且财务报告鼓励促进这种创新的投资，四篇学术论文中的第一篇考虑了财务报告对创新的实际影响。Ana Simpson 和 Ane Tamayo 发现该领域的研究有限，为思考与创新和相关披露相关的问题提供了一个新框架。在第二篇论文中，“报告很重要：财务报告对融资和投资决策的实际影响”，凯瑟琳莎士比亚发现财务报告会影响行为，例如，管理层使用会计规则来构建交易以实现某些财务报表结果。该论文还从一个相对较新的研究流中提供了有趣的见解，该研究探讨了会计与宏观经济产出之间的关系。John Core 关于“财务报告对薪酬和激励的真正影响”的论文探讨了收入和激励之间的关系，并发现当将复杂性引入用于评估某些薪酬组成部分（例如期权和离职后福利）的计算中时，它可以导致测量错误。以薪酬部分支出不足为例，