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.     

Accounting comparability and relative performance evaluation by capital markets

This paper examines how accounting comparability affects the monitoring role and the risk allocation role of capital markets. We develop the statistical and informational properties of accounting reports under varying degrees of comparability. A perfectly comparable accounting information system enables investors to perfectly infer the difference between any two firms' future cash flows although investors remain uncertain about either firm's cash flow. Comparability alleviates entrepreneurs' moral hazard problem by strengthening the price response to the relative accounting performance, but can induce excessive price risk as well as residual systematic cash flow risk. Unlike the investors (users) who earn their surplus by bearing the residual systematic risk, the entrepreneurs (preparers) do not find perfect comparability desirable. Hence, a standard setter would mandate higher comparability than preferred by preparers, but not perfect comparability.     

多源流理论视角下宅基地使用权确权政策的议程设置研究——基于江苏省4市的调查

研究目的：探讨宅基地使用权确权政策的议程设置，分析政策制定的内在规律、优化政策制定的运行机制以及预测政策制定的未来趋势。研究方法：文献研究法，问卷调查法，访谈法。研究结果：宅基地使用权确权政策的议程设置受到“宅基地使用权确权问题何以成为焦点议题”的问题源流、“政策连贯性及其法制依据”的政策源流以及“民众意愿、利益主体与政府策略”构成的政治源流三种源流的影响，并经由政策之窗实现交汇，推动农村集中居住区宅基地使用权确权问题进入政策议程。研究结论：宅基地使用权确权政策变迁的策略选择在于以《深化农村改革综合性实施方案》的政策颁布为时机，明确以“农村集中居住区宅基地确权”为主要内容的核心问题，制定以《农村集体土地产权法》为法制依据的政策建议，营造以“项目进村”为确权契机的政治环境，从而推动宅基地使用权确权政策的发展。