Consider the following accounting changes:

• What might cause a decrease in the estimated life of depreciable assets and provide two examples?
• What might cause a decrease in doubtful debts as a percentage of gross receivables?
• What changes would you expect to see in the financial statements when a gold miner changes from recognising revenue from gold mining when the gold was extracted rather than when gold is delivered?
• Why might a firm seek to capitalise of a higher proportion of R&D costs and what are the implications of doing this versus expensing R&D expenditure?