The examples cited by Thomas and Smith (1997) are the political concern with discrimination in insurance pricing, leading to numerous papers on underwriting; and proposals to change accounting standards for pension costs, leading to a flurry of effort to defend traditional actuarial approaches, or argue for alternative approaches. Another example cited by Thomas and Smith (1997) is that normative accounting theory are stimulated by the emergence of "orphan estates," as a political and media issue, leading to efforts to justify distributions more favorable to shareholders. A second consequence of normative theories' role as excises is that whether a theory proves true or false in the long-term may not be a particularly relevant factor in whether its originators prosper or not (Thomas & Smith, 1997).

Positive accounting theory appears to have the better position in the debate. This is because the first step in economics involves identifying the qualitative nature of...
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