Faculty Note: Russ says that present form of accounting is dead

UW‑Green Bay Prof. Meir Russ from the Cofrin School of Business provided a book review at Amazon.com for the book entitled, “The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers” by Baruch Lev and Feng Gu. Russ suggests that the authors (accounting professors) did the impossible, suggesting in plain English why their profession is at risk of becoming irrelevant to investors and managers. They have done that methodically and rigorously, suggesting that the vast majority of the information created by the current in-use accounting method is irrelevant at best, and sometimes plain harmful. Russ commends the authors for going further and suggesting an industry specific framework (which is revolutionary for accounting) of reporting and management of tangible and intangible assets, and providing four detailed examples of industries to illustrate the use of their proposed framework. Russ advocates that despites minor weaknesses of the book, their framework, especially regarding intangibles, should be adopted in the very near future, a position he holds for long time. The complete review can be found here.