A major body of the literature discusses this issue formally in the context of decision and/or institutional theory.One basic argument in this context is provided by Demski(1973) in his seminal paper on normative accounting standards. His analysis relates to US-American regulatory institutions aiming at identifying superior general accounting standards for financial accounting purposes (FASB) as well as for cost accounting and reporting for governmental contracts (CASB). Demski formally proves that no such standard can exist for decision-making purposes, i.e.: