Financial reporting standards for the public sector: New Zealand's 21st-century experience

New Zealand was seen as world-leading when public sector financial reports were prepared using sector-neutral accounting standards from 1995 onwards. The decision in 2002 to adopt IFRS was disruptive, effecting new understandings of ‘sector-neutral’, and the standard-setter's approach was unsuccessful in meeting public sector users’ needs. The development of a new strategy finalized in 2012 has created a multi-standards framework, including adapted IPSASB standards applicable from 1 July 2014. While neutrality is still prized, it is within a framework of meeting users’ needs. This paper traces the influences expediting these changes.     

Global 2000: Radar for the ship of state

The way the US Global 2000 report has (and, especially, has not) been reacted to and publicly debated illustrates many fundamental problems in developing workable and efficient radar for the ship of state. The text and footnotes draw attention to eg conflicting assumptions in different agencies, or the superficial but unchallenged criticisms of analyses by senior government officials. Many important principles are not even addressed.     

A European view on the legitimacy of accounting procedures: Towards a deliberative-accountability framework for analysis

Accounting rules affect fundamental areas of social interaction encompassing groups that have diverse and conflicting interests regarding financial reporting. In the absence of a coherent social choice theory, concepts of legitimacy can be used to assess the acceptance of accounting standard-setting processes and their resulting norms. In this paper, we analyze the standard-setting process in Europe. Accounting rules in Europe are developed in a two-stage process involving both private standard-setting and public rule-making. From a structural perspective, the European Union (EU) is well positioned to develop legitimate accounting procedures. However, the original purpose and the ensuing legitimacy of its control mechanism are jeopardized when EU structures are used and sometimes abused for policy formation and the creation of EU-IFRS.     

New development: Integration of budget and governmental accounting in Mexican states

ABSTRACT

Mexico recently introduced an accounting–budgeting framework compatible with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). This article discusses the implementation of this framework, including the harmonization of information for the functional, administrative and economic budget categories for all Mexican states and for Mexico City. The author analysed public accounts and budgets prepared under the framework’s information requirements, as well as assessing the harmonization of accounts between the local, state and national levels of government. The results show an increase in both the amount and the harmonization of the public expenditure information being reported. This paper contributes to the literature of harmonization between financial reporting and budgeting processes (Dabbicco, G., & Mattei, G. (2020 Dabbicco, G. , & Mattei, G. (2020). The reconciliation of budgeting with financial reporting: A comparative study of Italy and the UK. Public Money & Management , 1–11. doi: 10.1080/09540962.2019.1708059 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The reconciliation of budgeting with financial reporting: A comparative study of Italy and the UK. Public Money & Management, 1–11).     

New development: Determinants of financial performance in public organizations

In the slipstream of NPM, public organizations worldwide have had to increase their financial performance by adopting management practices. Nonetheless, financial performance (FP) might be mostly predicted by contingencies that are not within direct managerial control. Drawing on evidence from 308 Flemish municipalities, this article shows that organizational and environmental contingencies affect FP, but a significant amount of variation in FP is unexplained—indicating that management could well matter.     

欧元vs美元：解决一个历史的难题

Kenen（2002）对美元持续保持最主要的国际货币地位提供了一个很好的统计角度的综述。虽然欧元自1999年1月1日正式流通以来极其成功地统一了欧洲的金融市场,它并没有像很多人所预期的那样,显著地取代美元在国际外汇市场上的中心地位。这个难题包含了两个方面的问题。第一,在战后的美元体系中,为什么在欧洲会形成一个独立的区域性货币？第二,虽然欧洲货币联盟（EMU）直至1999年都很成功,为什么欧元在欧洲以外的地区取代美元作为国际货币的作用却非常有限？通过考虑Kenen提供的证据,我试图对以上两个方面提供解释。     

Just Say No to Wall Street: Putting a Stop to the Earnings Game

CEOs and CFOs put themselves in a bind by providing earnings guidance and then making decisions designed to meet Wall Street's expectations for quarterly earnings. When earnings appear to be coming in short of projections, top managers often react by suggesting or demanding that middle and lower level managers redo their forecasts, plans, and budgets. In some cases, top executives simply acquiesce to increasingly unrealistic analyst forecasts and adopt them as the basis for setting organizational goals and developing internal budgets. But in cases where external expectations are impossible to meet, either approach sets up the firm and its managers for failure.
Using the experiences of several companies, the authors illustrate the dangers of conforming to market pressures for unrealistic growth targets. They argue that an overvalued stock, by encouraging overpriced acquisitions and other risky, value-destroying bets, can be as damaging to the long-run health of a company as an undervalued stock.
Putting an end to the "earnings game" requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing expectations in such a way that their stocks trade reasonably close to their intrinsic value. In place of earnings forecasts, management should provide information about the company's strategic goals and main value drivers. They should also talk about the risks associated with the strategies, and management's plans to deal with them.     

New development: A new COFOG for South Korea

The South Korean government's Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG) is grounded in the System of National Accounts (SNA), rather than Government Finance Statistics (GFS). This article explains why a GFS-based classification might be beneficial to South Korea for the purposes of fiscal management and the comparison of government expenditures with other countries.     

New development: Estate agents’ perspectives of anti-money laundering compliance—four key issues in the UK property market

ABSTRACT

In recent years, money laundering in the property market has come under scrutiny across the world, attracting significant attention from governments, regulators, policy-makers, NGOs, academics and others. However, there remain gaps in knowledge, which is particularly important given practical difficulties in the implementation of anti-money laundering (AML) obligations. This article offers new insights into such implementation in the context of the UK AML regime and the real estate sector. The authors analyse four important issues relating to the UK AML obligations: customer due diligence (CDD); reporting suspicion; training requirements; and letting (rental) agents.     

The real impact of a one-off fiscal restriction: empirical evidence of a flypaper effect in Flemish municipalities

This paper analyses the effects of a one-off fiscal restriction on Flemish local government spending. The authors provide evidence of a ‘flypaper effect’: fiscal restriction stimulated the sensitivity of local spending to grants. This means that higher-level governments (regional/national/supranational) need to take a flypaper effect into account when considering one-off fiscal restrictions on lower-level governments.     

New development: Running elections during a pandemic

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic posed a profound challenge for the delivery of elections worldwide. Elections are indispensable for democracy, but the high volume of human interactions within the electoral process risked spreading the virus. Electoral officials therefore found themselves planning or managing an election during an emergency situation, often for the first time. This article argues that there are several major organizational ‘elephant traps’ that polities will need to side-step during pandemics in order to safely protect the healthy running of elections.     

Sustainable development in cities: collaborating to improve urban climate resilience and develop the business case for adaptation

Fragmented governance contexts make it difficult for public bodies to direct and control climate adaptation initiatives. This paper highlights how Newcastle City Council collaborated with local partners to create a shared understanding of how a major storm could affect public services across North East England. This helped the authority to develop a business case to invest in infrastructure that will help to protect future generations from severe weather events.     

New Labour and the Modernisation of British Local Government: A Critique

The modernisation agenda for local government is based on questionable political assumptions. It has the attributes of a theological concept. This paper examines the concept of modernisation of local government by focusing on three dimensions (1) governance, (2) management and (3) finance. This analysis suggests the modernisation agenda is limited in scope and vision.     

New development: Mutual solutions to shaping public service delivery

There have been a number of developments in approaches to public service delivery in the UK, partly as a response to austerity measures, as well as a shift to new models of public sector, private and third sector provision. This article considers the development of public service mutuals—those organizations that have spun out of the public sector, and where employees of the new providers play a key role in shaping and delivering public services at local and national levels. The authors identify areas where further work is needed to better understand these new models and to consider whether the perceived benefits associated with traditional mutual models are applicable when applied to public service provision.     

多极世界中的美元政策:从“善意忽视”走向“积极管理”

美元作为世界主要储备货币和国际交换媒介,降低了美国消费者和企业的交易成本,减少了美元借款人的融资成本。当前国际货币体系走向多极化,国际经济、政治、社会和科学技术等发生重大变化,美元政策变革势在必行。短期内美元作为世界主要储备货币的地位难以动摇,但关于美元政策应该尽快从善意忽视转变为积极管理。     

New development: The practical relevance of public sector accounting research; time to take a stand

ABSTRACT

This article discusses three major themes that challenge researchers to focus more on practice-relevant public sector accounting research: How to combine practice-oriented research with being an impartial scholar? Which types of research themes have practical relevance? How can research contribute to societally-relevant issues?     

新型农村养老保障制度改革——北京模式的探索意义及其适用条件

本文以北京模式为案例,探讨了新型农村养老保障体制改革的主要特征和改革方向。北京模式明确提出政府提供基本养老保障的职责,推动建立人人共有的基本养老保障制度,使其具有研究价值和经验借鉴意义。当然,北京市的社会经济发展水平和财政能力,使其推广上应注意适用条件,特别是针对人口老龄化水平高的中西部劳动力输出大省,以及财政能力薄弱的省份,单纯依靠地方财政将面临巨大的财政压力。在分税制的情况下,需要在制定合理的财政补贴标准基础上,科学地划分中央财政和地方财政的支持比例,才能确保财政的可持续性,建立全国统一的新型农村养老保障体系。     

中国财政分权问题研究:一个文献综述

伴随着中国改革开放后经济的持续快速增长,越来越多的国内外学者围绕中国的财政分权问题展开研究。财政分权问题涉及到诸多因素,对其研究必须采用多层次的视角。既有的研究成果多囿于财政分权的某个局部层面,尚未见一个能够解释、分析中国财政分权问题的完整理论框架出现。     

Accounting and Competitive Tendering in UK Local Government: An Institutionalist Interpretation of the New Public Management

The paper applies institutional theory to analyse the changing role of accounting and contracting in UK local government as the compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) regime was extended to white-collar activities such as housing management, finance, legal services and information technology. Employing an organizational fields model, accounting changes were seen to be influenced by a combination of legal coercion, normative and competitive forces, the resistance and manipulation of the large local authorities together with the facticity of the new accounting and contracting regimes. The theoretical framework is applied to field-work carried out in a large metropolitan authority in the north of England where CCT methodologies directly affected housing management but not other services such as finance. Although resisting CCT for finance, the authority subsequently introduced a radical scheme of voluntary competitive tendering for selected finance processes. The paper examines how accounting and contracting may be adapted to emerging trends in the New Public Management associated with Best Value policies.