An International Comparison of Materiality Guidance for Governments, Public Services and Charities

The annual report is promoted and regarded as the primary medium of accountability for government agencies. In Australia, anecdotal evidence suggests the quality of annual reports is variable. However, there is scant empirical evidence on the quality of reports. The aim of this research is to gauge the quality of annual reporting by local governments in Queensland, and to investigate the factors that may contribute to that level of quality. The results of the study indicate that although the quality of reporting by local governments has improved over time, councils generally do not report information on aspects of corporate governance, remuneration of executive staff, personnel, occupational health and safety, equal opportunity policies, and performance information. In addition, the results indicate there is a correlation between the size of the local government and the quality of reporting but the quality of disclosures is not correlated with the timeliness of reports. The study will be of interest to the accounting profession, public sector regulators who are responsible for the integrity of the accountability mechanisms and public sector accounting practitioners. It will form the basis for future longitudinal research, which will map changes in the quality of local government annual reporting.     

Converging New Public Management Reforms and Diverging Accounting Practices in Flemish Local Governments

This paper aims at presenting a comparative study of the diverging development of accounting reforms in Flemish local governments in terms of accounting from a technical point of view. On the one hand, the objectives and the framework of current governmental accounting reforms aiming at improving New Public Management are currently converging. On the other hand, a conceptual examination reveals that the prescribed accounting practices are widely diverging and apparently this is also the case for the practical implementation of the reformed accounting systems. By way of conclusion, a number of possible reasons for this unsuccessful proliferation are presented.     

Accounting for Infrastructure Service Delivery by Government: Generational Issues

Infrastructure service provision by government creates huge distributional issues about service availability and performance over time and the relative funding burdens borne by successive generations of consumers across time. But providing financial disclosure on these issues through inter-generational accounting pre-supposes that accounting measurement is both generationally neutral (temporal neutrality) and does not legitimate any particular pattern of distribution. At the very least, accounting measurements of service provision costs should possess the attribute of distributional fairness. They should not bias the inter-generational allocation of cost or funding burdens. We argue that the forced application of inappropriate commercial accounting concepts of asset valuation, depreciation and capital maintenance does produce significant generational bias. More flexibility is required to produce the necessary accounting measurement attributes for financial disclosure on whether government has discharged its continuing accountability for inter-generational equity in burden sharing. We discuss three conceptual issues and illustrate the need for flexibility by proposing an alternative 'flow of obligations' approach which does not require reference to valuations of community service resources or arbitrary cost allocations under depreciation.     

我国地方金融管理的绩效评价与对策研究

近年来,我国地方性金融机构和地方政府的金融管理工作取得了长足进展,为支持地方经济发展做出了贡献。但是,地方金融管理也面临着政策博弈、隐性行政干预、管理效率低等一系列问题,影响了金融资源的有效配置,并造成风险隐患。本文分析了我国地方金融管理的主要特点,总结了地方政府行使金融管理职能中存在的问题和不足之处,并就如何改进地方金融管理工作,优化地区金融生态环境,防范地区金融风险等问题,提出了相应的对策建议。     

完善地方政府金融管理体制研究

地方政府金融管理体制是我国金融体制的重要组成部分。目前我国地方政府金融管理实践中还存在着重复监管、监管盲区、责权不对等、职能混淆等问题,基于对当前地方政府金融管理体制缺损主要原因的分析,借鉴国外经验及寻求理论指导,本文建议从中央地方政府统分结合、金融发展与风险防范关系、需求角度及基础性制度安排等方面入手,逐步完善地方政府金融管理体制。     

Application of Anglo-American Principles of Consolidation to Corporate Financial Disclosure in Japan

The adoption by Japan of consolidated corporate reporting in 1977 may be viewed as an instance of the international transfer of Anglo-American practices of corporate reporting, and as a step towards international harmonization of accounting. Consolidation practices in Anglo-American nations are based on assumptions about the nature of corporate group associations. This paper examines the applicability of these assumptions to the corporate context in Japan. Personal interviews and analyses of group associations of listed Japanese corporations support three principal findings: (i) that historical and cultural determinants provide significant contrasts between corporate group associations in Japan and Anglo-American nations; (ii) that Anglo-American methods of consolidation fail to reflect adequately the nature of corporate group associations in Japan; and (iii) that the adoption of consolidation in Japan represented a response to situation-specific change stimuli rather than a general acceptance of the intrinsic merit of consolidation. The findings have implications for international accounting.     

Intergenerational Equity: Treatment of Infrastructure in New Zealand Local Government Financial Planning

This paper examines how local government authorities plan and financially provide for infrastructure while considering the needs of current and future communities. In New Zealand the Local Government Act 2002 provides a mandate for local authority planning through the requirement to publish Long Term Council Community Plans (LTCCPs). Our content analysis of the LTCCPs, annual plans and annual reports of five New Zealand local authorities reveals that these local authorities make conscious decisions about infrastructure that reflect concern for matters of intergenerational equity. They do so despite problems in relation to valuation, depreciation, deferred maintenance and financing of infrastructure assets.     

地方政企合谋与信贷资源配置

通过建立地方政企合谋与信贷资源配置的数理模型来研究分权下地方政府干预信贷资源配置服务于地方政府的自身效用,结果表明地方政企合谋是地方政府在直接干预力度减弱的情况下,间接干预金融资源配置的一个重要的途径;且地方政府官员的政治晋升是助长这些干预行为的关键因素。若将发现地方政企合谋与政府地方官员政治晋升与否直接相关,即能起到威慑作用,并能形成最优的防范地方政企合谋契约。     

Financial Statements and Positive Accounting Theory: The Early Contribution of Aldo Amaduzzi

This paper examines some of the accounting ideas that were developed in the late 1940s by an Italian professor, Aldo Amaduzzi, with regards to positive accounting studies and the content of financial statements. The paper briefly reviews the aim, methodological assumptions and key findings of the so-called 'positive accounting theory' based on the works of the Rochester school of accounting. A content analysis of the early work of Amaduzzi, in relation to his view that the contents of financial statements can be seen as the equilibrium outcome of a conflict of interests between corporate stakeholders, shows that many of the methodological issues on accounting theory stressed by the 'Rochester school of accounting' were raised by Amaduzzi (1947, 1949). The paper concludes that although some key differences between the two approaches do exist, Amaduzzi may be considered as a forerunner of positive accounting theory.     

地方政府金融办职能定位问题研究

随着地方经济的快速发展,地方政府金融办在促进地方金融发展、配合中央金融监管部门开展工作、落实国家金融调控政策、填补金融监管空白等方面发挥着不可替代的作用。但伴随着金融办职能的扩张,出现了职能边界模糊、人员配备不足、职能冲突等问题。必须合理划定金融办的职能边界,巩固以协调、服务为中心的固有职能,明确以金融监管为中心的扩充职能。剥离融资和金融资产监管职能,并通过立法的方式将金融办的职能范围予以明确。     

The Banking Sector,Government Bonds,and Financial Intermediation: The Case of Emerging Market Countries

This paper develops an analytical framework to explore how financial-sector characteristics shape the terms and the scale of public borrowing in emerging market economies. We find that the more competitive the banking sector and the more liquid and deeper the deposit market, the better are conditions in the public securities market. We also show that the greater the central bank independence, the higher the cost of public borrowing. Furthermore, our results suggest that, in countries where banks rely significantly on foreign currency financing, the greater the government's reliance on bank lending, the greater is its exposure to exchange rate risk.     

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).     

Banks’ Financial Reporting and Financial System Stability

The use of accounting measures and disclosures in banks’ contracts and regulation suggests that the quality of banks’ financial reporting is central to the efficacy of market discipline and nonmarket mechanisms in limiting banks’ development of debt and risk overhangs in economic good times and in mitigating the adverse consequences of those overhangs for the stability of the financial system in downturns. This essay examines how research on banks’ financial reporting, informed by the financial economics literature on banking, can generate insights about how to enhance the stability of the financial system. We begin with a foundational discussion of how aspects of banks’ accounting and disclosures may affect stability. We then evaluate representative papers in the empirical literature on banks’ financial reporting and stability, pointing out the research design issues that empirical accounting researchers need to confront to develop well‐specified tests able to generate reliably interpretable findings. To this end, we provide examples of settings amenable to addressing these issues. We conclude with considerations for accounting standard setters and financial system policy makers.     

Sustainability accounting regulation in Spanish public sector organizations

In 2011, the Spanish government made sustainability accounting mandatory for public sector organizations. This paper documents why, despite the new legislation, the quantity and quality of sustainability accounting practices remains low.     

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。     

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.     

地方政府执行保障性住房政策研究述评

保障性住房政策是我国政府保障民生的一项重要政策,地方政府承担着执行该项政策的重要责任和义务.20世纪80年代以来,尤其是最近几年我国学者围绕地方政府执行保障性住房政策的重要意义和实施要求、存在问题及其原因、国外经验借鉴和自身改进对策进行了大量的研究,取得了较为丰富的研究成果,但是研究中也存在一些不足之处,弥补不足、深化研究、提高质量是今后进一步研究的重要任务.     

Public Sector Accounting Reform at Local Government Level in Indonesia

This paper describes and analyses the challenges encountered in attempting to reform public sector accounting in Indonesia, the main objective of which is to combat corruption and thus help improve governance. Our observations suggest that this reform has been seriously hindered by a lack of staff with adequate accounting skills — a problem exacerbated by the decision to continue to prepare old‐style cash‐based reports alongside the new accrual‐based reports. Our key contribution is to demonstrate the danger of rushing to copy public sector financial management techniques from quite different country contexts, especially when there are significant differences of opinion as to the appropriate design of these reforms among the influential policy‐making agencies.