LOCAL AUTHORITY ACCOUNTING – THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

A number of writers have bemoaned the lack of a conceptual framework for public sector accounting. This paper surveys briefly the recent accounting history of UK local authorities. It continues with an outline of a number of frameworks which are available and concludes that an inclusive framework based on the concept of worldviews, recognising the variety of views and perspectives, would be more appropriate. This is then applied to explain the current debate on capital asset accounting, suggesting that there has been a major shift in the worldviews of accounting policy makers from fiduciary stewardship towards performance evaluation. The need for further research is recognised.     

CAPITAL ACCOUNTING, USER NEEDS AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC SECTOR FINANCIAL REPORTING

This paper analyses the need for an adequate conceptual framework for financial reporting, particularly in the public sector, and examines several factors which may have worked against progress in the UK in developing such a conceptual framework in the past. The paper then analyses in detail the needs of potential users for capital accounting information in public sector financial reports, and the relevance of accruals accounting and different measurement bases in this context. Given the large amount of existing work outside the UK on the development of conceptual frameworks for financial reporting, the paper argues the need not for a new framework, but rather for a more focused analysis of several key conceptual issues that are relevant to meeting user needs.     

A MARXIST CRITIQUE OF THE FASB'S CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In developing its conceptual framework the FASB challenged supporters of traditional accounting to provide objective and operational definitions of the elements of financial statements that do not depend on definitions of assets and liabilities as future economic benefits. The paper answers this challenge by deriving a general theory of accounting from Marx's analysis of the circuit of industrial capital. It concludes that whereas the FASB's framework, based on the marginalist idea of economic value, is subjective and vague, the Marxist theory of financial accounting derived here provides critical accounting with a scientific foundation.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS OF ACCOUNTING FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR

This paper offers a review of the conceptual framework projects that have been done by, or on behalf of, accounting standard-setting bodies, and that have concerned themselves with public sector accounting. Developments since 1966 in North America are the primary focus, although the UK and New Zealand are also explicitly addressed. The major theme identified is the ubiquity of the user/user needs approach, despite the continuing lack of evidence about user needs. The paper tries to explain this and concludes that standard-setting bodies have used these conceptual frameworks to establish their own legitimacy, by appealing to the public interest.     

THE SUBJECTIVITY OF THE FASB'S CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: A COMMENTARY ON BRYER

Bryer argues that the FASB's conceptual framework is inherently subjective because it is based on the concept of “economic value”, or the anticipated net cash inflows attributable to presently owned assets. By contrast, Marxist economics is based on objective facts that can be measured to a “socially required level of accuracy”. The objective facts of a Marxist conceptual framework rest on the theory that capital circulates in three forms: money, commodities to be sold, and commodities to be used in production. Capital, and, therefore assets, are essentially physical (or technical) in nature rather than monetary in nature. Measurement of assets is objective because Marxist theory emphasizes management stewardship and requires historical cost and a strict realization criterion for recognition of revenue. Bryer's argument that the FASB's conceptual framework is “unacceptably subjective” because it is based on “economic value” is misplaced. A careful reading of the FASB's concepts statements suggests that assets represent service-potential, or “use-value” in Marxist terms, and that economic-value is never advocated as a conceptual basis for the measurement of assets. The reason the FASB's conceptual framework is “subjective and vague” is that the FASB lacked the political will to advocate a conceptual preference for any particular measurement method.     

ACCOUNTABILITY AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN THE NONPROFIT SECTOR: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This paper clarifies the nature of nonprofit accountability by distinguishing between the substantive and processual understandings of the public interest. The major theories of the nonprofit sector are shown to imply that this sector's activities correspond to the public interest only in its processual understanding, but not in the substantive one. Policy and management implications of this argument are discussed.     

经济组织形式、交易性质与社会信用维持--兼论我国社会信用的缺失原因与重构设想

本文首先区分了市场经济和前市场经济即采邑经济两种完全不同的经济组织形式,辨析了在其中占据主体地位的交易即契约化交易与人格化交易在性质上的根本差异;在此基础上,作者探索了我国目前社会信用缺失的深层次原因:我国与市场经济相适应的社会信用体系之所以迟迟难以建成,关键在于内部的"契约威权"观念与外部的"法制规范"这两大要素都尚未具备;而采邑经济条件下信用维持机制的日趋解体,则是产生普遍的民间信用危机这一问题的主要原因;两种因素叠加,遂使我国目前社会信用体系出现空前的危机.以此分析为基石,文章最后探讨了我国信用体系重构的若干设想.     

OF MESSINESS, SYSTEMS AND SUSTAINABILITY: TOWARDS A MORE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING

This essay is a personal attempt at a re-visitation and re-consideration of a number of the fundamental questions which underlie accounting and finance but which only rarely receive explicit consideration. Social and environmental accounting has been the principal focus of my research interests since I became an academic and the subject was, indeed, the primary reason I became an academic in the first place. A concern with social and environmental accounting automatically forces one to raise basic questions about (what is conventionally thought of as) accounting and finance—its foundations, its purposes, its assumptions. In trying to answer those questions one comes to see all of accounting and finance in different ways—both in terms of what it assumes about the world and what it can potentially do for the world. This paper seeks to clarify some of the ways in which conventional accounting and finance and social and environmental accounting (and finance) can be in harmony. However, the principle purpose of the paper is to suggest that many of our ghettos, our internecine squabbles and our misunderstandings are trivial when compared with the essential question of what we place at the centre of our teaching and scholarship. At the core of accounting and finance is a truly fundamental conflict between sustainability and modern international financial capitalism. Our choices between these are likely to be a great deal more than matters of methodological nicety or intellectual convenience. Social and environmental accounting (and finance) offer a way to recover a moral and productive accounting and finance that places survival of the species at its very heart.     

GLAMOUR VERSUS VALUE: TRADING BEHAVIOR OF INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUAL INVESTORS

We design a new metric to measure the net buying and selling by institutions and individual investors and find that from 1980 to 2004 institutional investors were net buyers of growth stocks and net sellers of value stocks, implying that individual investors were net buyers of value stocks and net sellers of glamour stocks. The institutional preference for glamour and value stocks seems to be related to sell‐side analysts' recommendations and recent favorable stock price performances, especially during the post‐1994 period. Finally, the institutional buying of growth stocks and sale of value stocks was not based on superior information.     

THE NATURE AND MEASUREMENT OF COST SAVINGS IN CURRENT VALUE ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS*

The paper considers the nature and measurement of cost savings in current value (cost) accounting systems. In general, current cost accounting proposals have interpreted cost savings in an unnecessarily restrictive way. For example, current cost accounting does not allow for the possibility that a company which borrows at a fixed rate of interest may derive significant cost savings if interest rates increase during the term of the loan. The measurement of cost savings on debt is considered in this paper. In addition, it draws attention to the concentration of current cost accounting proposals on cost savings at the expense of the analogous losses which may arise in relation to revenue.     

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AMBIGUITY IN ACCOUNTING AND EVERYDAY LIFE: THE SELF-PERPETUATION OF ACCOUNTING

This research study seeks to demonstrate accounting's autopoietic capacities in social enactments of change such as a preferencing tribal-based corporatisation. The paper, through a form of critical ethnography, underscores the argument that accounting self-reproduces through a complex interplay between: (a) the political effecting of ambiguity in a controversial and sensitive policy of change; (b) assumptions about accounting's ability to reduce ambiguity; and, (c) the inherent ambiguities in the accounting language. The research suggests that in order to be more appreciating of accounting's self-reproducing capacities, we need to be more conscious of the interplay between the politics of ambiguity in society and the aesthetics of ambiguity in accounting. In the process, the paper highlights the general applicability of accounting as an act of self-replication, and the way in which perceived “meaningless[ness]” and time “eating” notions of accounting, ironically contemplate more of it.     

把时间抢回来 把影响补回来——国家开发银行支持加快恢复经济社会发展

向东软医疗发放2.6亿元人民银行专项再贷款,助力企业加快研发生产诊疗器械;向君乐宝乳业发放人民银行专项再贷款2亿元,支持其保障湖北、北京等地乳品供应;向永荣控股发放4300万元复工复产专项贷款,为民营企业发展助力;向平凉至天水、武都至九寨沟等4条高速公路项目一次性投放长期贷款40亿元。     

THE SHARING OF MEANING BETWEEN ACCOUNTING STUDENTS AND MEMBERS OF THE ACCOUNTING PROFESSION

This study examines the extent to which accounting students and practising accountants share the same meanings of fundamental accounting concepts. In doing so, it provides evidence on the suitability of using accounting students as surrogates for accounting practitioners in the study of connotative meaning in accounting. Using the semantic differential technique, the “cognitive structure” (the structure within which meaning is held) as well as the positioning or placement of concepts within the structure were determined for both groups. Each group was found to have a similar cognitive structure (a three dimensional structure comparable to the classic structure found in the psychology literature, Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum, 1957). However, the placement or positioning of concepts by students within that shared structure was significantly different to that of accounting practitioners.     

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF VALUE TO THE OWNER

This short paper applies the economists' concept of consumer surplus to the accountants' concept of value to the owner. It is shown that the two relevant concepts of consumer surplus - the equivalent consumer surplus and the compensating consumer - result in valuations that differ from the traditional Solomons, et al., analysis. This proposition is established by use of traditional neoclassical demand theory. It is also shown that whilst the analysis is essentially of a short run nature this is also true of the accountants' concept of value to the owner.