Disrupting Consistency in Accounting

I show that the issuance of a new accounting standard disrupts the cycle of consistency within accounting organizations, leading to improved accounting information. For the recent FASB Revenue Recognition and Leases standards, I show they lead to more error disclosures and more updates to legacy policies within the standards' topic areas before the accounting standard change is implemented. I do not find a difference in the effects between firms more or less affected by a standard, consistent with the standards being broadly disruptive for all firms. However, I do find stronger effects for more decentralized firms following the Leases standard, implying a mechanism of the disruption: a centralized standard implementation effort that unifies historically dispersed accounting practices. I further demonstrate that the policy updates identified following the disruption result in improvements to accounting information. My results show that accounting standard-setting activity affects financial reporting processes and outcomes even prior to the adoption of the standard in a way that is distinct from the effects of the actual changes in accounting guidance.