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In 2009 and 2010, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) adopted new accounting standards for nonprofit mergers and acquisitions. The new accounting standards are an example of the constitutive role accounting can play in how people think about economic events, since the FASB defined a new concept (the “inherent contribution”) and required valuation of intangible assets that were often previously unrecognized.

The FASB’s stated goals included minimizing “pooling” accounting and maximizing transparency regarding fair value information, acquired identifiable intangible assets, and the relation between consideration paid and the fair values of identifiable assets acquired. The FASB expected many combinations would involve little or no consideration. It also expressed concern that some organizations would undervalue assets acquired, especially intangible assets.

For a sample of 2012–2017 nonprofit hospital combinations, we find general agreement with the FASB’s expectations. Almost all combinations were accounted for as acquisitions, not mergers, even though there was frequently no consideration paid. More acquirers recorded “inherent contributions” than goodwill, because the net fair value of the acquired hospital’s identifiable assets exceeded the consideration paid. Acquirers ascribed value to assets, such as intangible assets, that would have gone unreported under the prior accounting rules, although lower levels of intangible assets were recognized in nonprofit business combinations, relative to total non-goodwill assets acquired, than in public companies’ acquisitions.

This research examines the use of a number of time series model structures of a moderate allocation mutual fund, PRWCX. PRWCX was rated as the top fund in its category during the past five years. The fund invests at least 50% of its total assets that the fund manager believes that have above average potential for capital growth. The remaining assets are generally invested in convertible securities, corporate and government debt bank loans, and foreign securities. Forecasting the total NAV of such a moderate allocation mutual fund, composed of an extremely large number of investments, requires a method that produces accurate results. These models are exponentially smoothing (single, double, and Winter’s Method), trend models (linear, quadratic, and exponential) are Box-Jenkins models.

Emerging markets are said to have sustained relatively well in the recent global crisis. There are several factors that help explain this popular view, such as, for example, perceived separation from key international financial centres. Still a lot is to be digested in the crisis aftermath with immediate implications for financial markets and real economy. This chapter offers a unique insight into dynamics within transition economies via an extended blended fiscal–monetary policy rules model with possibility of foreign reserves targeting and foreign currency-denominated debt dynamics. Calibration is based on actual data and is done under various targets and financial risk conditions. Prudent monetary policy and fiscal policy initiatives within current context drive the choice of targets. That may help dampen negative impacts of the crisis and thwart potential currency run. This chapter advances three possible post-crisis scenarios, each with unique solution for reserves, exchange rate, sustainable debt and output levels. Categorizing between net exporters and net importers based on countries' external positions, group-specific results are derived. While both groups are susceptible to exchange-rate risk affected by a multitude of shocks due to their fragile financial system, net importers risk high inflation, but net exporters over-borrowing. This chapter contributes to the literature on global financial crisis, macroeconomic policy, and role of nominal targets and foreign reserves in emerging markets.

Purpose — The main aim of the paper is to study the occurrence and connections of different pre-insolvency violations of law on the example of Estonian firms.Design/methodology/approach — The study is based on the whole population financial data of Estonian bankrupt firms and all publicly available court judgments about firm insolvencies from the period 2002–2009. Three types of violations have been considered: non-submission of annual reports, violations of net asset requirement and elements of criminal offence.Findings — The paper shows that non-submission of annual reports is common for insolvent firms but its occurrence varies through insolvency years and types. A similar finding can be attributed to net asset requirement violations. Elements of criminal offence are also frequent, but their occurrence is not different through insolvency years, industries and firm size groups. Elements of criminal offence and net asset requirement violations are not likely to exist together. Although medians of several pre-insolvency financial variables are significantly different in case of firms where criminal offence elements were found, they are not useful for offence prediction.Research limitations/implications — Statistical analysis limitations of the current study are mainly associated with the content of the data, because the dataset itself covers the whole population of publicly available information. The application of some results in different countries might be limited because of differences in legislation and its implementation. The study outlines novel information about and connections of different pre-insolvency violations which could be applied for relevant theory-building or more elaborate empirical research in the future.Practical implications — The study can be used by managers, owners, creditors and other stakeholders of firms to improve detection of possible pre-insolvency violations.Social implications — Regulators and regulation implementers can make use of the study when considering a change in legal framework or in its practice.Originality/value — The paper shows the presence of selected pre-insolvency violations on an extensive dataset. Previous studies have mainly been theoretical, qualitative or using small datasets.

Most undergraduate and graduate financial accounting exercises follow a “forward based” pedagogical approach where students learn how accounting events (causes) are captured in the accounting system and appear on the financial statements (effects). While these forward based approaches are necessary and effective ways to teach the fundamentals of accounting, they provide a relatively narrow procedural perspective on how to use such knowledge. The reality is that many students will be required to solve problems where the ultimate goal is to discern the causes of financial statement outcomes. To solve such problems, “backward based” procedural knowledge is required. Research in cognitive psychology indicates students need exposure to problems that require different procedural knowledge to develop the flexible problem solving schemas necessary to address problems with different end goals (Chen & Mo, 2004). We present a series of financial accounting exercises designed to help students develop skills associated with analyzing financial statement outcomes (effects) to determine the causal accounting events. The exercises also provide a comprehensive review of the primary financial accounting topics typically addressed in introductory accounting courses. This allows the exercises to be used as an ongoing end of chapter review problem or as a comprehensive course review exercise.

This chapter addresses the general process of determining the value of a particular company, with additional detail on how valuation processes might be adapted to produce credible value conclusions of emerging technology ventures. There are three primary approaches to business valuation. There is the income approach, which indicates that value is a product of expected future cash flows – cash flows that are discounted to equate them to dollars in-hand (present value). There is the market approach, which attempts to draw conclusions of value based on the market prices of similar companies in the public and/or private markets. Finally, there is the asset approach, which indicates that the value of a company is equal to the sum of the values of its net assets. Specific adjustments are appropriate with respect to each of these approaches where the value of an emerging technology company is concerned. Professional valuation standards require that all of these approaches be considered in the valuation, even if the available information does not permit their credible application. Often, multiple approaches and techniques can be applied. The results of applying multiple techniques often do not overlap, and it is the analyst’s very important task to reconcile differing valuation results, or to decide which result or results should be discarded.