مقاله با عنوان هدف حسابداری و مفهوم ارزیابی بازار به بازار در فرمت ورد و شامل ترجمه متن زیر می باشد:
The objective of accounting and the meaning of mark-to-market valuation
Now,
let us consider about relationship between the concept of realized
income and valuation gains or losses on financial assets. Before going
on to the discussion of this issue, it would be helpful to compare the
realized income and economic income and reconfirm the relationship
between them. As already discussed in detail, with regard to financial
assets in the proper sense of the word, the results of investments would
be measured at the same amount under both of the two income concepts.
In cases of financial assets that are mere investments of surplus money
and can always be freely sold by the piece, their values are equal to
the market prices no matter who holds them and a change in their market
prices is in substance same as realization of cash flow. On the
contrary, in cases of physical assets used in business, whereas changes
in the market value and the value of goodwill affect the economic
income, they will not affect the realized income until they are realized
as cash flows. In this process, goodwill is generated as an expectation
of future results of business investments and while it disappears as
time passes all or part of it is transformed into the value of tangible
assets. This process is irrelevant to realized income, although
important to the economic income. Result of investment is realized when
it has been released from the business risk, and measurement of realized
income does not recognize all value changes of assets, but recognizes a
portion that is realized as value of financial assets. Of course, when
summing up the entire period of a real investment, there would be no
difference between the economic income and the realized income. Unless
we regard the goodwill generated by an investment as an element of the
capital to be maintained, the amount of income is anyway determined
ultimately by the total cash flows of the investment and its results.
Therefore, the difference between these two concepts is no more than
difference in the period to which income is attributed. Both concepts
result in inter-period allocation of net cash flows 7). Then, which will
better serve the objectives of accounting information, the allocation
of cash flows based on the concept of economic income, or the allocation
of cash flows in a systematic manner (independent of the changes in the
value of assets) based on the concept of realization? It is a
traditional view that financial statements should provide information
that is useful for investors to assess the corporate value through their
own forecasts of future results 8). When considered based on such
usefulness to investors’ expectation formation process, the major issue
is the meaning each of income information has. Let us first consider
about the result of a business investment. As mentioned many times, this
forecast varies with the enterprise that makes the investment.
Investors by themselves forecast the result and thereby assess the value
of assets invested in the business. The value of physical assets, which
determines the economic income, is a result of such assessment by the
investors and it is not an ex ante information useful to investors’
assessment. Although income measured only by changes in market price
ignoring the value of goodwill is also a kind of economic income, such
information is not useful for investors in forecasts of future cash
flows or assessment of the goodwill inherent in the enterprise. As long
as cash flows generated from business investments depend on intangible
management resources inherent in each enterprise, to be useful to
forecast future results, income information should capture the actual
cash flow realized by the enterprise, after all. By comparing the result
with the ex ante expectation, investors can revise their expectation
and assessment of the value of the investment. Such a meaning, known as
feedback value 9), has been attached to the realized income.On the other
hand, in cases of financial assets, at least for those which can be
sold freely by the pieces, there will be no difference in the valuation
of assets, whichever concept of income is applied.Since there is no
goodwill value in financial assets, their valuation is completed by
identification of their market prices. For such assets, current market
value would be the most useful information.However, it is not clear to
what extent the income measured on the basis of the changes in market
prices is useful to forecasts. The fact that financial assets have no
goodwill value is rather consistent with the view that the future
results of investments in such assets will have nothing to do with the
past results and such income information is not useful to the formation
of expectations 10). Considering in this way, whichever the income
concept is chosen, information of income from financial investments
might not have any more meaning to investors’ expectation formation than
the market value information of stock variables 11). However, at least,
it would be information that is compatible with the forecasts of future
cash flows, in that cash flows arising in the period are compared with
the expectation at the beginning of the period. Except for the special
case where changes in market prices do not mean the realization of cash
flows, valuation gains or losses on financial assets may not be
irrelevant information to the assessment of corporate value based on the
forecasts of future results. In this respect, there is a basic
difference from the cases of physical assets.