Viewed through the lens of the valuation perspective, this line of research is limiting
in two respects. First, as pointed out by Bernard (1995), this paradigm essentially
"precludes from the outset the possibility that researchers could ever discover something
that was not already known hy the market" (emphasis in the original). The valuation
perspective calls for a shift in the objective of research on firm value and accounting
data. Rather than focusing on the relation between accounting information and contemporaneous
returns (or prices), the valuation perspective calls for more research that
examines the relation between current accounting information and future returns (prices).
I will discuss this shift in research emphasis in more detail in the next section.
Second, the RIM makes transparent the restrictive nature of the assumptions required
when current prices (or returns) are modeled as a function of reported earnings
or book value. For example, consider the following price level regression: