The Wheat Study on Establishment of Accounting Principles (1971-72): A Historical Study

The 1972 report of the Wheat Study on Establishment of Accounting Principles became the blueprint for the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which began its official operations on July 1, 1973, succeeding the Accounting Principles Board. The FASB was the world’s first independent, full-time standard-setting board which was not organized within the accounting profession. This paper is an attempt to understand the crisis in standard setting that led up to the appointment of the Wheat Study, as well as the main elements in the Study’s process of examining the milieu of the APB, securing views from a wide range of interested parties, and fashioning its report, including the roles played by the different members of the study group.