Stephen Haswell

Purpose: While the debate about fair value accounting (FVA) and the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008-2009 has been explored in the academic and professional literature, there has been little debate about the consequences of FVA being implicated in the crash of Enron around 2001, and the effect of this on later FVA developments and the GFC. The purpose of this paper is to examine how well regulators, political actors, and other commentators may have understood the use, misuse, effects and consequences of FVA at the time of Enron, and to examine how this collective understanding (or lack thereof) has influenced later accounting policy, especially that going into and arising from the GFC.Design/methodology/approach: Using content analysis, the commentary about FVA is traced through documents, primarily the US Congressional Hearings’ examination of the collapse of Enron that took place between December 2001 and December 2002. An assessment of the knowledge of and attitudes toward FVA is made from these and is then traced through later developments including policy responses before, during and after the GFC.Findings: Links are found between the collapse of Enron and adjustments to FVA in the mid-2000s, which in turn became implicated in the GFC. These linkages are explored in the context of a fair value world view held by global standards setters in the mid-2000s. During the timeline from the 1990s to the mid-2000s, those advocating and adopting FVA as part of this world view, may have had collectively an insufficient understanding of the consequences or effects of FVA technology.Originality/value: The study provides evidence of a direct link between Enron, the response of global standard setters, and the GFC controversy.

Ancient DNA is the name given to the degraded, fragmented, and chemically damaged biomolecules that can be recovered from archaeological remains of plants, animals, and humans. Where ancient human DNA has survived at archaeological sites, it can give valuable information and is especially useful for its potential to identify kinship, population affinities, pathogens, and biological sex. Here, we describe the operation of a microfluidic device for the sex identification of ancient DNA samples using an efficient sample handling process. DNA is extracted from powdered bone samples and abasic sites labeled with biotin. Streptavidin-coated superparamagnetic particles are used to isolate the labeled DNA prior to amplification of the Amelogenin sex marker.

US accounting regulation has been criticised for maintaining an over‐complex “rules‐based” approach, cited as the partial cause of significant failures in corporate governance. US regulators state that they are now on a pathway to a more “principles‐based” approach, but the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) claims superiority in this approach already. The recent efforts of the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and IASB are examined to see if either claim is clearly supportable. As these authorities appear to be in the process of creating a world accounting standard‐setting duopoly, unresolved problems involving over‐complexity are likely to be transported to other countries, including Australia.

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