Index of Empirical Research in Accounting

Economies of scale in data collection and dissemination exist in many areas. Trade associations, professional bodies, newspapers, academic journals, stock exchanges and standard industry sources such as Moody's, Standard and Poor's and Lloyds operate centralized data services. This is hardly surprising; the analysis of Stigler, for example, indicates that standard sources should be observed.' Information exchange is a less obvious but more important reason for the existence of professional and academic bodies in accounting, and in other fields. The AICPA's endorsement of particular accounting procedures is a valuable and reliable way of communicating that these procedures are being followed by its members. The Data Bank for Empirical Research in Accounting (DEBRA) is an attempt to rationalize accounting data sources, although along different lines. The Bank was organized by the Institute of Professional Accounting at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago.2 The general aim of the Data Bank will be to increase the efficiency of data collection, dissemination, and use in accounting, with its attendant benefits. A reasonable estimate is that 80 percent of the effort in an average system is concerned with data collection and dissemination, and only 20 percent with data use. It would not be infeasible to reverse these proportions. In the immediate future, DEBRA's aim will be to improve the quality