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I. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of the potential and actual relevance of academic research to the accounting standard setting process. This paper is a compilation of my own views and those of selected individuals involved in accounting research, accounting standard-setting, and professional practice.(1) I took this approach in order to present a multilateral perspective on two questions of interest: whether, and how, the standard setting process might benefit from the participation of academic accounting researchers; and whether, and how, data access and data availability affect this potential.(2)
Although my primary focus is the standard setting process, I include an example relating to auditor legal liability to illustrate several practical concerns about the flow of information to academic researchers. Because the focus of the paper is standard setting, I do not consider a number of important accounting research areas that arguably have, or could have, substantial relevance to some aspect of the practice of accounting, including audit judgment research, the acquisition of expertise, distinctions between the investment and stewardship uses of accounting numbers (except as these research areas impinge on standard setting), tax accounting, and the uses of accounting data for certain internal purposes, such as cost allocations. In addition, I do not consider in any detail research approaches other than those based on empirical-archival methods, although it is certainly my view that research which uses other approaches can substantially benefit the standard-setting process.
This paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, I describe the attributes of policy-relevant research, that is, research that is, or might be, relevant to accounting standard setting. I also discuss characteristics that distinguish academic accounting research efforts, and describe what I see as the consistencies and inconsistencies between these characteristics and the attributes of policy-relevant research. The third section describes where in the standard setting process academic researchers might make a contribution and, by implication, where they most likely cannot contribute. The fourth section uses several examples to illustrate how data access/data availability limitations place constraints on the scope of academic researchers' contributions to the standard setting process.
II. DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN POLICY-RELEVANT RESEARCH AND CONVENTIONAL ACADEMIC ACCOUNTING RESEARCH(3)
In this section I will first describe and contrast what I see as the...