The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 revisits
Feltham and Ohlson’s [1996] model of depreciation and parsimonious valuation
starting from fundamentals (cash flows) in the absence of inflation.
Inflation is introduced to the cash flow dynamics in section 3. Accounting
representations of equity value are derived for an arbitrary depreciation
policy and no restatements of book value for inflation, followed by
the identification of inflation accounting policies that allow for parsimonious
valuation. Implications are drawn with respect to the use of realized
inflation rates as called for in SFAS 33 in place of expected rates and the
properties of valuation errors when approximate adjustments for inflation
are made through depreciation policies that rely on the long-run average
inflation rate. Section 4 considers foreign exchange rate changes driven by
relative inflation. Accounting representations of equity value are derived
under policies that rely on either historical exchange rates (SFAS 8) or current
exchange rates (SFAS 52). Depreciation policies and translation adjustments
that result in efficient accounting are identified. Section 5 concludes
the study.