Shyam Sunder, crítico da IFRS

David Albrecht, no seu blog, se propõe a analisar 6 críticos da adoção da IFRS nos EUA: Sunder, Niemeier, Ball, Selling, Jensen e o próprio. O primeiro a ser analisado é o PhD Shyam Sunder, professor de Yale, com seis livros publicados (tenho na minha pequena biblioteca pessoal um deles) e 150 artigos. Foi presidente da American Accounting Association, grupo de professors dos EUA de contabilidade.

A análise é feita com três obras de Sunder. Este blog já publicou alguns artigos de Sunder (aqui) sendo que um destes artigos é analisado por Albrecht.
A análise é muito longa, mas recomendo fortemente que leiam o texto aqui

Crítica ao IFRS

O respeitado autor de contabilidade Shyam Sunder (SEC mandate invites monopoly, Financial Times) faz uma crítica a adoção do IFRS pelos Estados Unidos. Sunder questiona a razão de existir um monopólio na determinação de regras contábeis.

Além disto, as normas do IFRS possuem os seguintes problemas:

a) por ser baseado em princípios, mas sem uma força na execução, permite espaço para diversidade e redução na comparabilidade
b) a SEC identifica como razão para optar pelo IFRS em decorrência de “elevada qualidade”. Entretanto, a SEC não esclarece o que significa isto
c) Ficará mais difícil a existencia de tratamentos alternativos e a experimentação contábil. [Isto não seria um freio para as inovações?]
d) A substancia econômica dos negócios depende de questões jurídicas, comerciais, de mercado, de governança e de gestão ambiental. Imaginar que as normas internacionais irão permitir maior comparabilidade é um sonho. Sunder lembra que alguns países adotaram o IFRS mas usam suas interpretações próprias.
e) Ao contrário das medidas físicas, o comportamento das empresas mudam com as alterações nas normas contábeis. Neste caso, a contabilidade assemelha-se mais a metáfora das línguas do que das medidas físicas. E o esperando é um exemplo de fracasso na adoção de um padrão internacional.

Uma análise lúcida sobre o assunto.

Sunder é autor do excelente livro Theory of Accounting and Control

Normas Internacionais

Precisamos ser mais críticos. Não aceitar passivamente o que dizem sobre os benefícios de certas decisões, sem analisar criticamente o assunto.

Um artigo publicado no Financial Times compara a adoção das normas internacionais de contabilidade (IFRS) com a adoção do Euro como moeda única para Europa. A questão da uniformidade é que os efeitos de sua aplicação não são uniformes:

(...) Incapacidade de reconhecer e gerenciar os riscos associados com a uniformidade tem impulsionado a União Monetária Europeia para um crítico precipício. Riscos semelhantes aplicam-se nos esforços do International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) , a profissão contábil e alguns reguladores internacionais em adotar as IFRS em termos globais.

O IASB e o FASB se comprometeram desde 2002 chegar a um acordo sobre normas de contabilidade comuns. Apesar de seus esforços, IFRS não foram aprovados pela Securities and Exchange Commission para a adoção dos EUA. A SEC não pode arriscar a reação política de ceder o controle de sua contabilidade para um organismo estrangeiro. Podemos aprender com o fracasso do euro e avaliar não só se a visão de um conjunto de normas contábeis globais é viável, mas também se é desejável.

As normas de contabilidade interagem com a legislação, os códigos comerciais e as normas sociais em diferentes países, em muitos aspectos. O IASB tem empurrado a sua agenda à frente sem tomar responsabilidade por consequências recorrentes inesperadas. O desastre de alguns bancos, esgotando seu capital mediante o pagamento de bônus e dividendos com lucros falsos, gerados no âmbito do IFRS (...) é um bom exemplo. (...)

A complexidade e a interatividade dos sistemas sociais e os mercados tornam praticamente impossível para um grupo de especialistas obter uma solução da contabilidade "melhor" que servirá economias divergentes. Mesmo se fosse possível, ela só pode ser desenvolvida através de evolução bottom-up da contabilidade e não através de imposição de cima para baixo de um único método selecionado por uma comissão de especialista com responsabilidade limitada.(...)

Embora os grandes jogadores obter economias de escala de aplicação de IFRS em suas atividades internacionais, acionistas e outras partes interessadas, particularmente no setor bancário, não foram bem servido pelos resultados de normas IFRS.

Por isso, apelamos a SEC para não prosseguir com as IFRS nos EUA. (...)

Sugerimos que o G20 abandone o seu apoio aos padrões de contabilidade globais. (...)

Global Accounting Rules – An Unfeasible Aim - Stella Fearnley & Shyam Sunder via aqui. Sunder é autor de Theory of Accounting and Control, onde afirma: "padronização afeta inovação" (página 165). Uma leitura fundamental para analisar as vantagens e desvantagens da padronização.

Valor Justo

Um artigo do Financial Times de 24/08/2007 discute o problema do valor justo. Um ponto interessante apresentado pelos autores é a existência de uma certa "incoerência" conceitual: quando existe uma bolha no mercado, os números contábeis também serão afetados por esta bolha. Isto pode fazer com que uma empresa apresente números melhores do que são efetivamente. A seguir, o texto completo:

Pursuit of convergence is coming at too high a cost.
By STELLA FEARNLEY and SHYAM SUNDER - Financial Times - London Ed1, Page 19

There are a variety of problems behind the present market turmoil - chiefly reckless lending and inaccurate credit ratings of securitised debt. But one has so far had little attention - the role played by so-called "fair" value accounting.

The gold standard in financial reporting has long been "lower of cost or market", meaning an asset is on the books at either its purchase cost or its current valuation - whichever was lower. This conservativsm counterbalances the inherent tendency of managers to overstate performance by preventing them from reporting profits before cash is in hand.

But this year, US firms have been encouraged to adopt early SFAS 157 and SFAS 159, new accounting standards. Under these rules, financial instruments (including mortgage-backed securities) are stated on balance sheets at their "fair" values, which are taken from markets where possible, or for more complex securities are estimated from valuation models.

The problem is that this assumes markets have good information from inputs such as financial reports and credit ratings. But there is a circularity built in: if credit raters and investors get their information from accounting numbers, which are themselves based on prices inflated by a market bubble, the accounting numbers support the bubble.

So instead of informing markets through prudent valuation and controlling management excess, "fair" values feed the prices back to the market. For example, a drop in the market value of the borrowings of a troubled company is reported as an increase in its income because the reduced liability flows through the income statement, thus obscuring the problem.

Investment banks, early adopters of SFAS 157, have shown improved performance from the changeover. JP Morgan Chase reported that SFAS 157 increased its first-quarter earnings by Dollars 391m (Pounds 196m, Euros 289m) - 8.2 per cent of its earnings - and Goldman Sachs reported an even larger increase of Dollars 500m - 11.5 per cent of net income. Share prices rose despite the incipient problems in mortgage-backed securities.

There were warnings. In 2006 the US Federal Reserve warned that fair value accounting could make an insolvent company look solvent. The UK's Financial Services Authority expressed concerns this year that fair value might not fully represent the economic reality of a business. Four months after some banks reported high first-quarter profits using fair value accounting, the Fed has cut interest rates to stabilise markets and keep some highly leveraged investment banks and hedge funds afloat.

The "fair" value accounting edifice is built on sand. Some banks sold subprime loans to reduce risk exposure but reacquired the risk by lending to parties holding the overvalued instruments. Bank directors certified their balance sheets. Did they ask the awkward questions about the real risk, credit controls and security in their loan books? Did the buyers of these derivatives, who packaged them up and sold them on, know how dodgy they were? Someone knew.

This is the second time in seven years that widespread problems have arisen in US accounting, securities' ratings and governance. Despite the onerous and costly requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, and stringent audit controls, the system was unable to fix something as basic as the existence and collectibility of loans.

Meanwhile, US and international accounting standard setters are pressing ahead with a global framework which would embed this aggressive accounting. They seek one global system, however defective. They want verifiability, via a market price or a management estimate, rather than reliability of the underlying substance.

Warren Buffett has warned that mark-to-market accounting turns to mark-to-model in illiquid markets and risks becoming "mark-to-myth". Auditors sign off that accounts comply with the accounting standards. What use is that to investors when it means complying with a bubble-blowing accounting model? The pursuit of convergence in accounting standards needs a radical rethink if this is what it leads to.

Most losses from the subprime debacle may fall to knowledgeable investors but our savings and pensions will not escape entirely.

Stella Fearnley will shortly be Professor of Accounting at Bournemouth University. Shyam Sunder is J. L. Frank Professor of Accounting, Economics and Finance at Yale School of Management.

Complexidade, novamente

Um artigo de STELLA FEARNLEY e SHYAM SUNDER, este um autor de livros na área contábil, defende a necessidade de reduzir a complexidade da contabilidade (clique aqui para ler, em inglês

Os autores citam o caso das demonstrações do HSBC, com 454 páginas e peso de 3 pounds. E perguntam: quem irá ler?

Uma das questões é o monopólio na elaboração das normas! Muito interessante, pois os autores defendem que em lugar da convergência, o FASB e IASB deveriam competir.

Além disto, os autores lembram que não ocorreu nenhuma consulta para decisão de convergência em 2002.

A proposta é simples, para os autores: aumentar a competição pode ajudar a reduzir a complexidade e simplificar a contabilidade.

Provocante, pelo menos.

Valor justo

As propostas dos Estados Unidos para relaxar as normas contábeis do valor justo dos ativos poderão alterar as práticas no mundo, depois que o órgão que define os padrões internacionais disse que também discutirá as mudanças.

A contabilidade pelo valor justo exige que as empresas divulguem a maior parte das posições financeiras pelos preços de mercado. Os críticos dizem que a queda dos preços reduziu o lucro dos bancos e minou as reservas de capital.

O Financial Accounting Standards Board dos EUA preparava anteontem a divulgação de um documento que dará a bancos e outras empresas mais liberdade na avaliação dos ativos financeiros.

Mais títulos serão avaliados por modelos de computador, em vez e por preços de mercado, e muitos deverão aumentar de valor. Uma mudança de regra poderá ser implementada já no mês que vem.

O International Accounting Standards Board (Iasb) concordou ontem em submeter os documentos aqueles que seguem suas regras - mais de cem países. Tanto o Iasb como seu congênere americano vinham resistindo às mudanças. Mas as pressões políticas nos EUA levaram às alterações, enquanto o Iasb foi forçado pela Comissão Europeia a amenizar as próprias regras no fim de 2008.

A mudança de regra iminente está atraindo críticas e elogios. "Vinha me perguntando há cerca de dois anos por que eles ainda não haviam feito isso", disse Ed Yardeni, da consultoria Yardeni Research. "A marcação a mercado implica que existe um mercado que fornece informações precisas, mas essa suposição foi por água abaixo."

Mas Shyam Sunder, professor da Universidade de Yale e crítico do valor justo, acha que a decisão foi mal avaliada. "Quando se olha o mercado para decidir as regras, é a mesma coisa que não ter regra nenhuma."

Lynn Turner, ex-diretora da comissão de valores mobiliários americana (SEC), disse: "Eles estão fazendo os padrões contábeis regredir quatro décadas".

Europa também avalia mudança no valor justo
Valor Econômico - 19/3/2009

Valor Justo

Abaixo, um artigo publicado na Accountancy, com alguns pontos interessantes sobre o valor justo. O Grifo é meu.

Financial Reporting - Fair value - Bring back Prudence.
8 October 2007 - Accountancy - 76

Fairness is a judgment, not a description; in our discussion of valuation in financial reporting we set aside the rhetorically loaded 'fair' value in favour of the neutral 'current' value. The 'fair' label discourages discourse by implying that its critics favour 'unfair' accounting.

Discussions of fair value accounting have focused on two issues: the decision usefulness and stewardship functions of accounting. We discuss both and show that current valuation is no better than other valuation methods in serving either of these two goals; in some respects it is worse. It may also undermine the reliability of the audit opinion.

The usefulness of current values for making investment decisions is a simple and straightforward statistical argument: if a company's resources are valued more accurately, decisions based on more accurate data would be better. Since value of resources tends to change over time, historical numbers associated with resource acquisition transactions tend to become obsolete with the passage of time, thus creating price movement inaccuracies. Other things being equal, current values should provide more accurate data and therefore be a better basis for making investment decisions.

Other things are not equal

However, other things are not equal. Current values of some resources can be determined with precision, especially if they are standardised, and traded in liquid markets. Steel girders, food grains, automobiles and treasury bonds are examples of such resources. Financial reports based on current prices of such liquid resources (adjusted for their small transaction costs) serve the decision-making function well. The case for current value accounting is based on such resources.

If all resources belonged to this 'liquid' class, the decision-usefulness argument for current values would be quite reasonable. Unfortunately, this is not so in most companies, industries, or the economy as a whole. Most resources are not so liquid, and their current values are subject to estimation or guesswork that introduces varying degrees of inaccuracy in the current numbers, thus creating price measurement errors.

Whether current values are more useful for making decisions depends on the relative magnitudes of the two kinds of errors: movement errors arising from ignoring the changing prices; and measurement errors arising from the imperfections in the markets from which current values are determined. Price instability (for example, inflation, demand or technological change) contributes to movement errors while market imperfections contribute to measurement errors.

When movement errors are large relative to measurement errors, current values are better for decision-making; when the reverse is true, the use of current values results in worse decisions.

Price volatility, and therefore the magnitude of movement error, varies by resource, company, industry, economy and over time. Similarly, market imperfections, and therefore the magnitude of measurement error, also vary by resource, industry and economy. Whether current valuation yields a better basis for making decisions would depend on the specific circumstance; it is not possible to establish their general superiority or inferiority for this purpose. Yet, the standard-setters have chosen to make current values the new basis of accounting for all resources, companies and industries, ignoring the absence of logical or evidentiary basis for its superiority for making decisions.

Stewardship problem

Besides the statistical problem of identifying the circumstances in which current values do and do not serve as a basis for making better investment decisions, there is a stewardship problem.

Shareholders entrust managers with their investment in companies to be run for their mutual benefit. They expect a higher rate of return for themselves by rewarding managers efficiently to deploy their skills in conjunction with capital. What kind of financial reporting arrangement between the owner and manager better serves the interests of both?

When the shareholder cannot know whether or not the financial reports from the managers are factually correct, the possibility of manipulation by the managers of inaccurate valuations made in good faith, reduces the confidence of the shareholder in both the financial reports and in the managers. Absence of trust leads to precautionary moves, which render the relationship less productive to both.

Undermining the audit

Given the measurement errors associated with current values of most resources, their blanket use in financial reporting is a prescription for poorer stewardship and accountability of managers. It may also undermine the value of audit, a key function in reinforcing capital markets' confidence in financial reporting.

The International Accounting Standards Board and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board's proposed conceptual framework for financial reporting is a model of relevance, faithful representation, neutrality, completeness and comparability. It has moved away from reliability and conservatism. Substance over form is subordinated to faithful representation.

When a market mis-prices securities, such as during the dot.com boom and the subprime mortgage market, accounting reports based on current values reflect inflated prices and tend to support, or even reinforce price bubbles.

Audit is an important subset of financial reporting and depends heavily on the quality of the reporting standards. Going forward, auditors may report that current value financial statements are in compliance with GAAP under its conceptual framework. If there are publicly available market prices, the auditor may verify that current values faithfully represent market values but that value may not be neutral or comparable with others. Absent availability of prices from liquid markets, the auditor becomes more dependent on managers' judgment and assurances about the values of some assets. Auditors may find themselves having to express an opinion on a mark to model estimate, which US pundit Warren Buffett has suggested may become mark to myth.

Because current value information may lack reliability, the level of assurance an auditor can offer on current value financial statements will be lower and the value of the audit to shareholders may be diminished.

Under a stewardship regime as in the UK, shareholders may well prefer an audit carried out under a true and conservative accounting model that gives primacy to substance over form and provides the opportunity to apply judgment to override distortion.

If the subprime bubble does nothing else, it questions whether accounting should simply reflect bubbles or should help bring restraint into financial reporting. Without truth, fairness and conservatism, it will be more difficult for shareholders to assess the stewardship of managers. It is still not clear whether, under the 2006 Companies Act, true and fair will return as it was before International Financial Reporting Standards or will remain subordinated to it.

How does a current value balance sheet, when some such values cannot properly be substantiated, contribute to adequate assessment of future cashflows for decision- making? We should invite our old friend Prudence back to financial reporting and auditing. We miss her, and under fair value accounting, so will the auditors.

False prophets

We have consistently maintained that there is no one answer to the world's accounting dilemmas. All accounting is defective and will continue to be defective as long as business activities and behaviours continue to change. Standard-setters may believe that they have found the holy grail. However, like The Da Vinci Code, the proposed answer remains unconvincing. We should eschew monopoly in accounting and allow alternative sets of standards to compete to attract a following in the marketplace rather than persist with a model that supports false prophets.

- Stella Fearnley is professor of accounting at Bournemouth University. Shyam Sunder is James L Frank professor of accounting, economics and finance at Yale School of Management.