EUROPEAN ACCOUNTING REVIEW

This study contributes to the accounting literature by providing empirical evidence from China that adopting IFRS does not necessarily lead to IFRS-type accounting practices. We examine the impact of regulatory enforcement, in particular, an important Chinese government compulsory compliance policy implemented in 2001, and audit upon the convergence of Chinese accounting practices. Using a sample of 103 Chinese B-share companies between 1999 and 2004, we reveal that the decline in earnings difference between firms' financial statements under Chinese GAAP and IFRS is the result of the implementation of the 2001 policy and the audit committee which effectively control the firm's application of standards rather than the differences between the standards. The effect of audit committee leads us further to argue that the convergence of accounting practices may be affected by not only the lack of insufficient understanding of IFRS by local accounting professionals, but also the management opportunistic behaviour during the application of different standards. It implies that corporate governance may affect the convergence of accounting practice. However, we do not find evidence for international audit firms outperforming their Chinese local CPAs with regard to IFRS compliance. Therefore, the Chinese government should be cautious in promoting the participation of international audit firms in China for achieving IFRS compliance.     

SOCIAL ACCOUNTING MATRIX FOR INDIA

This paper provides the latest Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) of the year 2003–2004 for the Indian economy with a wide variety of disaggregation for the Energy sector and the sectors that are relevant for environmental and climate policy evaluation. This SAM shows the interaction between production, income, consumption and capital accumulation. It can be used to provide an analysis of the interrelationship between the production structure of an economy and the distribution of incomes and expenditures of different household groups. In addition, it can be used for multiplier analysis to capture direct, indirect and induced impact on input use due to any exogenous changes in the economy. This SAM consists of 85 sectors of the economy, three factors of production and nine categories of occupational households. The Indian economy is becoming structurally biased towards capital intensive sectors, such as service and energy production. The energy production sector itself is the most energy intensive sector as of 2003–2004.     

国际审计准则540号：会计估计审计

该准则旨在为财务报告中所包含的会计估计的审计提供标准与指导。会计估计是指在缺乏精确计量方法时对报表项目所作的估计．如存货减值准备、应收账款的坏账准备、递延税款．预提的诉讼损失、质量保证金等。     

MANAGEMENT BY PANACEA: ACCOUNTING FOR TRANSIENCE

The cyclical nature of much consultant-led activity designed to improve managerial effectiveness is explored through three consultant-driven approaches to organizational improvement - management by objectives, organization development and total quality management. Such packaged programmes seem to proceed through phases of high enthusiasm and much activity followed by a period of disillusionment, to be replaced by the next stage panacea. an attempt is made to offer some explanation of the transitory nature of much managerial activity which is believed to lie fundamentally in cultural and psychodynamic phenomena. Such an analysis may provide some clues to the search for remedial steps which might be taken to find more enduring ways to bring about increased managerial effectiveness in organizations, although by the very nature of our diagnosis we remain pessimistic.     

MYTH AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE AMERICAN ACCOUNTING PROFESSION

The American accounting profession attempts to provide the public with efficient and effective financial reports; but to succeed, it must satisfy an environment of diverse, often conflicting, institutions. This article critically interprets the profession's development, arguing that it displays an interplay of myth and technology. This interplay generates structural flaws in the profession as well as a bias against reform.     

BENCHMARKING LARGE ACCOUNTING FRAMEWORKS: A GENERALIZED MULTIVARIATE MODEL

We present a multivariate benchmarking model for achieving consistency between large quarterly and annual accounting frameworks. The method is based on a quadratic optimization problem, for which many efficient numeric solvers exist. The method combines several features, such as linear constraints, ratio constraints, weights, and inequalities, in one model. Therefore, a wide range of modelling possibilities is supported. This method is especially interesting for national statistical offices, to simplify their processes to achieve consistency between publications.     

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS: ERP VERSUS BOB

The purpose of this study is to compare the use of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and best of breed (BoB) standalone systems in practice. The data for the study were collected through a postal questionnaire in 300 large and middle-sized industrial units in Finland. The questionnaire addressed questions concerning IS implementation (why, how and by whom the IS project was introduced), management accounting function, and the use of advanced management accounting techniques. The results obtained indicate that financial departments have been more interested in traditional BoB systems, while other departments have concentrated more on ERP solutions. Further, as the articulated motives behind the IS project were strategic, and moreover technical in nature, the solution in most cases was ERP, while in the cases where motives were either strategic or technical, the choice was BoB. Otherwise, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups of BoB or ERP adopters, and the problems perceived in management accounting or the adoption of advanced management accounting techniques (e.g. ABC, ABM and BSC).     

CREDIBLY IDENTIFYING SOCIAL EFFECTS: ACCOUNTING FOR NETWORK FORMATION AND MEASUREMENT ERROR

Understanding whether and how connections between agents (networks) such as declared friendships in classrooms, transactions between firms, and extended family connections, influence their socio‐economic outcomes has been a growing area of research within economics. Early methods developed to identify these social effects assumed that networks had formed exogenously, and were perfectly observed, both of which are unlikely to hold in practice. A more recent literature, both within economics and in other disciplines, develops methods that relax these assumptions. This paper reviews that literature. It starts by providing a general econometric framework for linear models of social effects, and illustrates how network endogeneity and missing data on the network complicate identification of social effects. Thereafter, it discusses methods for overcoming the problems caused by endogenous formation of networks. Finally, it outlines the stark consequences of missing data on measures of the network, and regression parameters, before describing potential solutions.     

CARBON EMISSION ACCOUNTING IN MRIO MODELS: THE TERRITORY VS. THE RESIDENCE PRINCIPLE

Consumption-based CO₂ emissions, which are commonly calculated by means of environmentally extended input–output analysis, are gaining wider recognition as a way to complement territorial emission inventories. Although their use has increased significantly in the last years, insufficient attention has been paid to the methodological soundness of the underlying environmental extension. This should follow the internationally agreed accounting rules of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, which addresses the activities undertaken by the residents of a country, independent from where these take place. Nonetheless, some footprint calculations use extensions that account for all the activities within the territory, which leads to methodological inconsistencies. Thus, this article introduces the most relevant conceptual differences between these accounting frameworks and shows the magnitude of the gap between them building on the data generated for the EXIOBASE model. It concludes that the differences are high for many countries and their magnitude is increasing over time.     

FACTORS OF INTERREGIONAL INCOME INEQUALITY IN POSTWAR JAPAN: THEIL DECOMPOSITION AND GAP ACCOUNTING ANALYSES

This study empirically identifies some factors of interregional income inequality in postwar Japan during the period 1955–2005 using a decomposition analysis with a Theil L index and a gap accounting analysis. One major empirical finding was that interregional inequality in per capita GDP during the period 1955–2005 showed a double peaked M‐shaped curve, which was predominantly attributed to interregional inequality in labor productivity. The sectoral decomposition analysis revealed that the factors that caused fluctuations in interregional inequality in labor productivity differed from year to year. The fluctuations during the period 1960–1980 were caused by an intersectoral equilibrating process between the tertiary sector and other sectors, whereas that the fluctuations that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s resulted from interregional disequilibrating and equilibrating processes within the tertiary sector.