Using laboratory experiments to evaluate accounting policy issues

Accounting scholars have long been challenged to demonstrate the relevance and timeliness of their research to the issues faced by accounting policymakers. Among others, Schipper (1994), Swieringa (1998), and Barth et al. (2001) provide examples of the progress made by empirical-archival studies in addressing this challenge. Several observers suggest a role for true experiments - designed studies in which participants make decisions under experimenter-controlled conditions - in addressing accounting policy questions. Although marked by recent interest, the use of experiments to address accounting policy questions dates back several decades. It is clear that accounting experimentalists are actively responding to the call for ex ante (or at least concurrent) policy-directed research, tapping the comparative advantage of experiments to contrast decisions under both existing and plausible alternative accounting policies in a ceteris paribus environment. Accounting experiments are responding effectively to the call expressed a few years ago for research with ex ante accounting policy insights.