The accounting convention which divided spending into revenue (current) and capital expenditure was particularly susceptible to manipulation.

In official statistics, various accounting conventions are adopted to deal with these problems in a standardized way.

"How well do we serve investors in those situations by working up some accounting conventions so things look nice and stable?"

The following kinds of different accounting conventions can arise.

So the reported earnings of two otherwise identical firms can differ as a result of different accounting conventions.

We will now consider two identical firms with identical operations and cash flows but employing different accounting conventions.

The adoption of one or other accounting convention as the basis for planning has real material consequences (Standish, 1990).

The special purpose entities were used for more than just circumventing accounting conventions.

But analysis may adapt typical accounting conventions for economic purposes in social accounting (such as in national accounts).

Also different accounting conventions will yield different measures of depreciation.