July 30, 2006

Business journalists have been flogging backdating of stock options, in part because it hides the cost of executive compensation. But one of the main critics is not averse to using her own funny numbers. As I discuss, the NYT's Gretchen Morgenson argues that the cost of options should be, in effect, "front-dated" by looking at companies' later costs of repurchasing the optioned stock. In other words, she'd like to inflate the costs of options to bolster her attack on executive compensation. Do we need accounting rules for journalists?