Political Influence and Coexistence of a Uniform Accounting System and Accounting Standards: Recent Developments in China

This article investigates the role of political influence, as well as accounting tradition and the equity market, in China's recent changes in accounting regulation. We find that the Chinese government, in part self-motivated and in part under external pressure, has been active in developing accounting standards in harmony with international accounting standards. However, it has retained a uniform accounting system in the Enterprise Accounting System issued in 2000 to accommodate the special circumstances of a transforming government, strong state-ownership, a weak accounting profession, a weak and imperfect equity market, and the inertial effect of accounting tradition and cultural factors. This article also contributes to existing models of accounting system classification by illustrating the need for considering political influence as a factor that affects the rate of transition towards full implementation of international accounting standards.     

Multi-disciplinary Professional Practice: Recent Developments and Attitudes of Accounting and Legal Practitioners

Recent developments in the professional accounting market and by the New South Wales legal profession indicate increasing pressure to consider multi-disciplinary professional practice in some form or other. Two of the Big Six accountants have launched new legal firms. In NSW, legislation has been amended to permit solicitors and other professionals, for the first time in Australia, to share their income. Australian legal and accounting professionals must seriously consider whether, and how, to facilitate the formation of multi-disciplinary partnerships (MDPs) where members of different disciplines combine to service clients' needs and share commercial profits.     

Legacy of the Golden Age: Recent Developments in the Methodology of Accounting

It is often suggested in the accounting literature that there was a distinct change in the methodology employed by accounting theorists/researchers around 1970. Nelson (1973) has referred to the 1960s as the 'golden age in the history of a priori research in accounting'. Since then, some have claimed a more scientific empirical methodology has been used. However, there are distinct similarities in the methodological presuppositions in both periods and it is argued in this paper that contemporary researchers have a debt to the 'golden age' theorists for introducing the requirement of a rigorous standard of argument for effective and reliable accounting knowledge.     

合法性原则在会计法规体系中的地位

合法性原则曾长期是我国会计理论和会计立法所倡导的一项基本原则,这一基本原则值得学术研究和立法实践继续予以重视。重温杨纪琬先生关于合法性原则的重要论述,对于我国会计改革与发展具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。合法性原则的含义随着我国社会经济生活的进步而不断丰富和发展,新时期的会计立法可以有新的作为。     

Developments: Resource Accounting in Ireland

The advocates of resource accounting see it as improving financial management and thereby improving the accountability of the organization, while critics see it as making the whole process of accounting more complicated than it should be. The Department of Public Enterprise in Ireland has published resource accounts for the past two years. While it has encountered many difficulties in making the accounts meaningful, the end result is a set of accounts comparable in standard to those of the private sector. This article explores the issues encountered by the Department and how it overcame these difficulties.     

Industrial Cost Accounting Developments in Britain to 1830: A Review Article

Haydn Jones's Accounting, Costing and Cost Estimation (1985) uses the surviving records of numerous Welsh companies, engaged principally in metal manufacture between 1700 and 1830, to demonstrate the use made by managers of accounting data, as the basis for planning, decision making and control. This article relates the results of Jones's research to existing views regarding the development of industrial cost accounting, particularly because his findings call into question ‘single variable’ explanations for the development of management accounting, such as the level of industrialisation, the relative impact of fixed and variable costs, and the organisational structure of business activity. Jones's findings also require a reappraisal of established ideas concerning the relative sophistication of financial and management accounting procedures in use in earlier times, and our perception of the contributions of accountants and their techniques to business developments.     

新会计准则下资产减值会计研究

资产减值会计对于真实反映企业资产价值和披露企业经营业绩具有重要意义,然而新准则的实施仍然存在诸多不确定性因素。本文分析了新资产减值准则实施中可能会遇到的一些问题,并提出相应的对策和建议,以期资产减值会计能得到更健康的发展。     

Regional Financial Arrangements: A Survey of the Literature and Recent Developments

This article summarizes recent studies on regional financial arrangements (RFAs) and examines the role played by global multilaterals and RFAs in emerging crises. We also review the major RFAs with regard to their basic organizational structure, activities, legal framework, and lending facilities. Finally, we discuss the attributes needed for the sustainable development of RFAs and we look at how they can expand their role for economic cooperation in the associated regions.     

Management and Accounting Developments in Executive Agencies

The executive agency programme has moved ahead rapidly since its introduction in 1988 and by 1996 over 70% of all civil servants were working under executive agency conditions. This has resulted in a major change in the structure of the civil service and in the management of the activities of central government. The question that then emerges concerns the benefits, if any, that these changes have brought about. This paper reports the results of a survey of a sample of senior managers in executive agencies. The survey attempted to ascertain the extent to which agencification was felt to have led to increases in autonomy and freedom to manage and also to obtain the views of managers on a range of issues including changes in operational effectiveness and quality of service delivery. These, after all, are some of the key measures of the success or otherwise of the agencification programme. The survey also examined changes in specific management accounting practices and a broad overview of the findings is provided in the paper. In general, it seems that the senior managers of executive agencies do feel that agencification has achieved many of the benefits hoped for and that is has brought about changes and improvements in management and management accounting practices.     

Recent Developments in Credit Markets

We summarize recent developments in the credit derivative markets. We show the role of dependence between individual debtors in portfolio derivatives in a study of implied correlation. The risk of changing dependence structures between stock and bond markets becomes evident in an example of capital structure arbitrage. How credit derivatives can introduce new risks is illustrated by the example of “overlay” in basket derivatives.     

Recent Developments in Corporate Governance: An Overview

I develop a corporate governance framework, provide a broad overview of recent corporate governance research, and place each of the Special Issue papers within the context of this framework. The papers in the issue contribute to our understanding of a wide range of governance topics including: the role of antitakeover measures, board structure, capital market governance, compensation and incentives, debt and agency costs, director and officer labor markets, fraud, lawsuits, ownership structure, and regulation. In short, the papers span almost every aspect of governance systems.     

Integrated Reporting: A Review of Developments and their Implications for the Accounting Curriculum

Integrated reporting (IR) is a major development in a number of sustainability-related accounting initiatives and, if widely adopted, will require significant developments in professional and university accounting curricula. These will include: a strategic rather than operational or transactional focus; longer- rather than short-term outlook; prospective rather than retrospective analysis; qualitative commentary as well as quantitative information; and reports on wider business performance metrics rather than on narrower external financial reporting data or audit compliance. This paper reports on ACCA's support of and response to the latest initiatives in IR, in particular the impact this will have on the education and training of accountants in order to reflect these new principles to prepare the twenty-first-century accountant for a much more challenging role in the near future. These developments can only be in the wider public interest of improving the relevance of information for decision-making, for all stakeholders, and allow greater efficiency in the allocation of financial and other resources and in adding public value.     

日本经济与金融的最近发展

2003年12月8日,日本银行行长福井俊彦在福冈举行的一次会议上就日本经济和金融的最新进展发表演讲,内容涉及日本宏观经济形势、货币政策以及前景展望。本刊对其演讲翻译编辑,以利于读者对其观点做进一步了解。     

会计原则协同:会计准则国际趋同的切入点

当前,会计准则国际趋同已经成为会计国际化的目标。会计准则的国际趋同首先要制定公认的、高质量的基准会计准则,才能在国际资本竞争的推动下使各国会计准则向基准会计准则靠拢。这是会计国际组织和各国会计准则制定机构的双向沟通过程,这一过程将是长期、复杂的。要加快这一进程,正确选择“趋同”的切入点是非常必要的。从性质看,会计准则国际趋同是一个准公共选择过程。根据公共选择理论,将会计原则协同作为会计准则国际趋同的切入点应是恰当合理的。由于各国的会计背景不同、环境不同,会计原则的协同将会遇到很多困难。但在会计准则的研究和制定中,会计原则及其导向日益受到重视,从中我们看到会计原则协同的希望和可能。