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December 2010
Teaching Note

Urban Water Partners (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Karthik Ramanna and George Serafeim

Teaching Note for 111016 and 111029. View Details

Keywords: Health Industry; Utilities Industry; Dar es Salaam

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December 2012
Article

Evidence on the Use of Unverifiable Estimates in Required Goodwill Impairment

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts

SFAS 142 requires managers to estimate the current fair value of goodwill to determine goodwill write-offs. In promulgating the standard, the FASB predicted managers will, on average, use the fair value estimates to convey private information on future cash flows. The... View Details

Keywords: Goodwill Impairment; Fair-value Accounting; FASB; SFAS 142; Fair Value Accounting; Standards; Cash Flow; Agency Theory; Motivation and Incentives; Forecasting and Prediction; Goodwill Accounting

August 2017
Article

Is the SEC Captured? Evidence from Comment-Letter Reviews

By: Jonas Heese, Mozaffar Khan and Karthik Ramanna

SEC oversight of publicly listed firms ranges from comment letter (CL) reviews of firms’ reporting compliance to pursuing enforcement actions against violators. Prior literature finds that firm political connections (PC) negatively predict enforcement actions,... View Details

Keywords: Comment Letters; Political Connections; Regulatory Capture; SEC Enforcement; Government Administration; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics

July–August 2023
Article

Accounting for Carbon Offsets

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston

Markets for carbon trading function poorly, and many traded offsets do not actually perform as promised. Without robust protocols for monitoring offsets and in the absence of proper accounting mechanisms, market-based approaches to reducing atmospheric GHG will be... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Regulation

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April 3, 2023
Article

Getting a Clearer View of Your Company’s Carbon Footprint

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Stefan Reichelstein

E-liability accounting is a new technique that will help customers factor in a product’s environmental footprint into their purchasing decisions and will help create a competition dynamic that leads to reduced carbon outputs. This article describes two pilot studies—by... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Accounting; Supply Chain; Consumer Behavior

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2013
Working Paper

The Auditing Oligopoly and Lobbying on Accounting Standards

By: Abigail M. Allen, Karthik Ramanna and Sugata Roychowdhury

We examine how the tightening of the U.S. auditing oligopoly over the last twenty-five years—from the Big 8 to the Big 6, the Big 5, and, then, the Big 4—has affected the incentives of the Big N, as manifest in their lobbying preferences on accounting standards. We... View Details

Keywords: Standards; Accounting Audits; Accounting Industry; United States

June 2012
Teaching Note

Deferred Tax Assets in Basel III: Lessons from Japan (TN)

By: David F. Hawkins and Karthik Ramanna

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April 2012
Article

The Question of IFRS Adoption: A Very Long Engagement

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts

Keywords: Accounting Standards; Political Economy; International Accounting; International Relations

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2015
Working Paper

Politically Connected Firms and SEC Comment Letters

By: Jonas Heese, Mozaffar Khan and Karthik Ramanna

24 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 24

of adult life stage theory and summarizes Daniel Levinson's research findings on the adult development of men and women. Purchase this note: http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/809097-PDF-ENG Choosing a GAAP for Canada Karthik View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2024
Article

Establishing the Foundation for Carbon Trading Markets

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston

Poor measurement practices and inadequate controls have led to extensive trading of carbon offset instruments that do not materially reduce the supply of atmospheric GHG. We introduce five carbon offset accounting principles, built from fundamental financial-accounting... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Offsetting; Accounting; Carbon Accounting; E-liabilities; Measurement; Trading; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Sustainability

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2014
Working Paper

Return on Political Investment in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004

By: Hui Chen, Katherine Gunny and Karthik Ramanna

Prior literature raises a "puzzle" of high rates of return on corporate political investment, but evidence for this puzzle is largely descriptive in nature. We exploit the setting of the American Jobs Creation Act's passage in 2004 to provide more robust estimates of... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Finance; United States