National Accounting, Government Budgeting and the Accounting Discipline

National accounting and government budgeting include two kinds of financial reporting that are not influenced by, but have an increasing influence on, the accounting discipline. The government budget has changed, over the last sixty years, from a financial statement that was recognisably part of the accounting discipline to one in which national accounting and government budgeting have the dominant influence. There were early attempts to reconcile national accounting and the discipline but these have largely disappeared. Although the three forms of accounting measure the same phenomena, each is different in fundamental ways, in terms of both relevance and reliability.     

Accounting Practice Harmony, Accounting Regulation and Firm Characteristics

Harmonization of accounting standards has been the subject of many initiatives taken at international, regional and national levels in recent years. Policy makers advancing this idea believe that accounting regulation harmony will lead to practice harmony. The literature in the area of accounting harmonization also generally relies on a similar belief.
Comparing accounting regulations and accounting practices of two countries that are pursuing a program of harmonization, Australia and New Zealand, revealed some association between the levels of regulation harmony and practice harmony. Although this indicates that regulatory harmony can improve practice harmony, the association is 'noisy', suggesting that there are also other factors affecting practice harmony. Evidence adduced here shows that accounting practice harmony is also associated with firm-specific characteristics.     

Domestic Accounting Standards, International Accounting Standards, and the Predictability of Earnings

We investigate (1) whether the variation in accounting standards across national boundaries relative to International Accounting Standards (IAS) has an impact on the ability of financial analysts to forecast non-U.S. firms' earnings accurately, and (2) whether analyst forecast accuracy changes after firms adopt IAS. IAS are a set of financial reporting policies that typically require increased disclosure and restrict management's choices of measurement methods relative to the accounting standards of our sample firms' countries of domicile. We develop indexes of differences in countries' accounting disclosure and measurement policies relative to IAS, and document that greater differences in accounting standards relative to IAS are significantly and positively associated with the absolute value of analyst earnings forecast errors. Further, we show that analyst forecast accuracy improves after firms adopt IAS. More specifically, after controlling for changes in the market value of equity, changes in analyst following, and changes in the number of news reports, we find that the convergence in firms' accounting policies brought about by adopting IAS is positively associated with the reduction in analyst forecast errors.     

Accounting,risk, and revolution

In response to the position of Steve Toms, this article argues that risk must be understood not as it has been posited by capital but rather as it might be taken up by labour. It uses Marx's socialization thesis to maintain that risk is a symptom of possibility for labour. Drawing on the work of Randy Martin the argument culminates in a consideration of the interanimation of capital in labour occasioned by the second helping of risk produced by its commoditisation. It concludes that far from being just what Michel Aglietta calls a social evaluation of private economic activity, risk offers the opportunity to develop an accounting not just to provoke capital's contradictions with its own tools but to develop an immanent accounting of socialized labour in revolution, an accounting to come.     

新会计准则、会计信息质量与股价同步性

本文以2004—2008年我国A股上市公司为样本,基于私有信息交易理论,分析会计信息质量如何影响股价同步性,以及新会计准则的改革如何影响了两者之间的相关性。结果发现,会计信息质量与股价同步性正相关,并且这种正相关性仅存在于负向盈余管理的情况,而在正向盈余管理的情况中两者之间的正相关性不明显,这与我国股票市场的卖空限制有关。同时,2007年新会计准则质量的提高显著减弱了会计信息质量与股价同步性之间的正相关关系。本文不但丰富了会计信息质量和股价同步性的相关文献,而且对我国资本市场加强会计准则改革和会计信息监管具有一定的参考价值。     

National Accounting, Governmental Accounting and Cross-country Comparisons of Government Financial Condition

The assessment of the financial condition of governments within the European Monetary Union is based on the 'Deficit-to-GDP' and the 'Debt-to-GDP' ratios. Reliable judgements and cross-national comparisons require reconciliation of national accounting and governmental accounting as well as a certain degree of transnational standardisation of governmental accounting. Recent and current developments of national accounting and governmental accounting systems have not considered these aspects and have therefore contributed, whether deliberately or not, to a questioning of the usefulness of the above-mentioned ratios.     

市场 政府与会计监管

本文以经济学中的公共物品理论为基础,并从社会优化选择的角度,提出了理性的会计监管是确保资本市场提供充分信息的重要手段。与民间自律相比,政府主导的独立监管模式在解决市场失灵、提高信息质量方面更具优势。本文最后提出了在我国建立以政府为主导的独立监管模式的初步框架。     

管理会计、成本会计、财务管理内容交叉问题的探讨

管理会计、成本会计、财务管理内容的交叉重复已成为不争的事实 ,亟待解决。本文在全面分析三者内容交叉原因的基础上 ,提出了解决的具体对策 ,认为管理会计与成本会计的合并具有必然性 ,合并后的成本管理会计与财务管理的工作侧重点及具体对象明显区别 ,从而使二者交叉的内容得以合理界定。     

新时代 新会计 新功能

<正>2018年是不寻常的一年,它既是改革开放四十周年的纪念之年,也是全面贯彻中共十九大精神的开局之年。纪念改革开放四十周年,深入贯彻落实党的十九大精神,全面回顾和系统总结改革开放以来会计改革与发展的成就和经验,推动会计更好地服务新时代治国理政和改革发展大局,中国财政科学研究院与中国会计学会、北京物资学院、山西大学共同举办此次论坛,回顾改革开放四十年来的会计事业发展成就并展望我国会计未来发展趋势。     

Accounting standards,regulatory enforcement,and innovation

We examine the effects of accounting standards and regulatory enforcement on entrepreneurial innovation and social welfare. When the entrepreneur issues a financial report that violates the accounting standards, a regulatory agency may detect the violation and bring charges. We find that when regulatory penalties are relatively insensitive to the magnitude of the violation, optimal standards are sufficiently low that they induce full compliance, and increase as the intensity of enforcement increases. In contrast, when regulatory penalties are sensitive to the magnitude of the violation, optimal standards induce non-compliance and decline as the intensity of enforcement increases.     

Terminal Value,Accounting Numbers,and Inflation

In a 2008 article published in this journal, Michael Bradley and Gregg Jarrell argue that the well‐known Gordon‐Shapiro (henceforth “GS”) model for calculating terminal values does not properly account for the effects of inflation. Bradley and Jarrell suggest modifying the growth factor in the standard GS model by adding an additional term to the nominal growth rate that reflects the positive effect of inflation on the value of existing assets. In this article, the authors support the original Gordon‐Shapiro method for calculating terminal values by showing what they believe to be an oversight of the Bradley‐Jarrell critique. According to the authors, the disagreement stems from the use of fundamentally different assumptions about the effect of inflation on the capital investment required to sustain a business. Although Bradley‐Jarrell agree with the authors that intrinsic value is the discounted value of future free cash flows, their assumptions about capital investment effectively lead them to conclusions similar to those practitioners who attempt to value companies on the basis of discounted future accounting earnings. Despite much common practice, the GS model was meant to be applied to free cash flows, not accounting earnings. And for companies with substantial capital investment, the differences between accounting earnings that involve accruals and free cash flows can be very large.     

事务所转制、审计师个人特征与会计稳健性

本文选用已转制事务所在转制前后各一年所审计客户公司为研究样本,在过去研究事务所转制基本效应的基础上,进一步考虑面对事务所转制带来的法律风险变化,不同特征审计师审计的公司,会计稳健性是否存在显著差异。研究发现:事务所转为特殊普通合伙制,客户公司会计稳健性普遍提高,但个人特征不同的审计师所审计客户公司的会计稳健性提高程度存在显著不同,具有本科或以上学历的审计师所审计客户公司的会计稳健性提高更加明显,而执业时间较长、年龄较大的审计师,其所审计客户公司的会计稳健性提高程度相对较弱。     

Rethinking Accounting,Accountability, and Accounting Regulation: Concerns about the Proposed Canadian Sustainability Standards Board*

This paper expands on a letter recently submitted by a group of Canadian business academics to the Independent Review Committee on Standard Setting in Canada (IRCSSC) in response to the committee's proposed Canadian Sustainability Standards Board. We highlight sections of the IRCSSC's Consultation Paper that we find problematic and draw on accounting and other research to explain why it fails to live up to its potential. Chief among the problems we identify is that the IRCSSC appears to be wedded to the same narrow, investor-based focus promoted by the International Sustainability Standard Board. We also draw attention to the rushed nature of the process, its exclusion of lay experts, the IRCSSC's ambiguous use of the term public interest, and its inattention to alternative understandings of value and the environment (including the people within it). Finally, we problematize the IRCSSC's sidestepping of the issues of power, culture, and conflict; its neglect of monitoring and enforcement; and its surprising disregard of the Global Reporting Initiative. Along with a number of suggestions for improving the process and its outcome, this paper also contributes to ongoing debates on standard setting and the question of whether accounting is currently equipped to provide the necessary tools for sustainability reporting.     

Financial Accounting Research,Practice, and Financial Accountability

Financial accounting is essential to financial accountability, which is essential to a prosperous society. There are many examples of how improvements to financial accounting, supported by research, have enhanced financial accountability. Such research requires a strong relation between accounting academics and practice; this relation has ebbed and flowed during the life of Abacus. The relation seems to ebb when accounting academics embrace related fields and flows when the relevance to accounting practice emerges. Economics and finance have provided new perspectives and meaningful insights about the information investors need to make informed decisions. Regardless, there are many intriguing and open questions awaiting accounting research that can provide insights into how financial accounting—and thus financial accountability—can be improved. The future is bright for financial accounting researchers who do research relevant to accounting practice and want to contribute to a prosperous society.