(No) Limits to Anglo-American accounting? Reconstructing the history of the International Accounting Standards Committee: A review article

The development of the current International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) from the earlier International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) provides insight into many issues of international financial reporting, among them the characteristics of international accounting standards themselves. This article reviews Camfferman and Zeff’s [Camfferman, K., & Zeff, S. A. (2007). Financial reporting and global capital markets. A history of the international accounting standards committee 1973–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press] volume on the organizational development of the IASC and contextualizes it in the broader literature of cross-border standardization in accounting. While having produced a seminal piece, the authors take a clear Anglo-American perspective. The downsides are insufficiencies regarding a simplistic understanding of experts and expertise, a neglect of the role of auditing firms, and only an imbalanced integration of different stakeholders.     

A benchmark for the adequacy of published financial statements

This paper considers the problem of establishing a criterion against which auditors and others can judge the adequacy of financial reporting. Three types of criteria are considered: a general over-riding requirement (type A), an integrated coherent framework (type B), and detailed regulation (type C). Approaches, trends and arguments are presented from a number of contexts, such as UK, US and Europe. Where more than one type of criterion is present (all three exist in the UK for example) one must be superior to the others. There can only be one deciding benchmark of adequacy. It is argued that type B is inadequate as such a benchmark, as all attempted ‘conceptual’ frameworks are internally inconsistent. Types A and C are both theoretically possible, but it is argued that only Type A is consistent, as the ultimate benchmark of adequacy, with the provision of useful information in a dynamic economic world. The current IASC thinking as demonstrated in IAS1 (revised) (IASC 1977a) is discussed, and contrasted with the fundamentally different proposals in the earlier exposure draft E53 (IASC 1996). The arguments of the paper throw considerable light on this debate, and are consistent with the final content of IAS1 (revised).     

After Dawson

At the first residential conference of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which was held at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, in September 1983, Mr Stewart Bates, QC, spoke on the implications of the decision of the House of Lords in the case of W. T. Ramsay Ltd v CIR. A report of those proceedings was held over until the decision of the House of Lords in the case of Furniss, v Dawson was known. The following report is based upon Mr Bates' address and the comments of Mr Stephen Oliver, QC, Mr John Avery Jones and Mr Adrian Shipwright who spoke at a lunchtime seminar convened by the IFS on 9 March 1984 to consider the decision in Furniss v Dawson. This report does not reflect the opinions of the IFS, which has no corporate views.     

The G4's role in the evolution of the international accounting standard setting process and partnership with the IASB

Between 1992 and 2001, representatives of the G4 national accounting standard setting bodies and the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) participated in a working group known as the G4+1. Immediately following the formation of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the G4 announced that the working group would no longer meet. Alternatively, the G4 national standard setters would form a partnership with the IASB via liaison representatives.This paper focuses on the objectives and mission of the G4+1, the G4's relationship with the IASC, the impact of the G4 on the restructuring of the IASC to establish a quality independent global accounting standard setter, former G4 participants’ perceptions of the IASB, and the significance of the IASB's current partnership with the G4 national accounting standard setters. The paper additionally discusses recent changes to the IASC Foundation Constitution and considers now modifications to the liaison structure may impact the IASB's partnership with its G4 national standard setting partners.Portions of a monograph published by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales entitled Inside G4+1: The Working Group's Role in the Evolution of the International Accounting Standard Setting Process provide the background for the paper.     

The IASC And Japan

The support of Japan, as a powerful nation and world leader, will be critical to the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) in its aim of promoting the harmonisation of international accounting standards. Japan represents a substantial challenge to the IASC objective; cultural and institutional factors have been regarded as impediments to its preparedness to adopt IASC standards. As deputy chairman of the IASC, the co-author of this paper, Michael Sharpe, has been involved in a number of seminars and discussions in Japan relating to the IASC activities and aims. This paper draws on those discussions, and on recent events and developments in Japan, to suggest that relations between the IASC and Japan are heading in the right direction and to make some prognoses about the acceptance of IASC standards by Japanese regulatory bodies.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: A Bibliography of Finance. By RICHARD BREALEY and HELEN EDWARDS. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991. Pp. xli + 822. Modern Corporate Finance. By ALAN C. SHAPIRO. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990. Pp. xxvi + 1045. Options: An Introduction. By ROBERT W. KOLB. Miami, FL: Kolb Publishing Co., 1991. Pp. viii + 216. The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Glass-Steagall Act Revisited and Reconsidered. By GEORGE J. BENSTON. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Pp. x + 263.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Grade Quick! The Teacher's Grade Processor. By DANIEL S. ABRAMS. New Haven, CT: Compu-Teach, Inc., 1992. Pp. viii + 57. Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street. By PETER L. BERNSTEIN. New York: The Free Press, 1992. Pp. xi + 340. European Banking. Edited by ANDY MULLINEUX. Oxford, England and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992. Pp. x + 222. Taxes and Business Strategy. By MYRON S. SCHOLES and MARK A. WOLFSON. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1992. Pp. xx + 616. International Financial Markets. By ALAN L. TUCKER, JEFF MADURA, and THOMAS C. CHIANG. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1991. Pp. xviii + 355.     

Lobbying of the International Accounting Standards Committee: The Case of Construction Contracts

Many cultural, political, economic and other environmental factors have been suggested as impediments to the efforts of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) to harmonize international accounting standards. We investigate the relationship between lobbyists’ position, and: (1) their home countries’ financial accounting standards; and (2) their home countries’ tax rules. The factors are tested both separately and jointly to increase our understanding of lobbying and obstacles to harmonization. Long-term construction contracts are used as our case study. Construction contracts were traditionally accounted for by either the completed contract method (CCM) or the percentage of completion method (PCM). Originally, the IASC’s Standards (IASs) allowed both CCM and PCM. Thus, most countries’ accounting standards complied with IASs. However, the IASC’s Comparability Project, beginning with Exposure Draft (ED) 32, proposed to eliminate CCM. Thirty-nine comment letters submitted on ED 32 contained specific references to long-term construction contracts. Although almost 60% opposed the complete elimination of CCM, the IASC eliminated it. However, in many ways, the IASC co-opted lobbyists by allowing the Zero Profit Method, which may effectively result in the same timing of profit recognition as CCM. Support is found for a strong link between respondents’ lobbying position and both their home country’s accounting standards and tax laws. Each factor may hinder the harmonization process. A high positive correlation also exists between the accounting standards and tax laws of lobbyists’ countries. Beyond the possible importance of the tax and financial reporting linkage affecting harmonization, the issue of multicollinearity should signal caution when interpreting the results of lobbying studies that simultaneously include highly correlated variables in the same model.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Knights, Raiders, and Targets: The Impact of the Hostile Takeover. Edited by JOHN C. COFFEE, JR., LOUIS LOWENSTEIN, and SUSAN ROSE-ACKERMAN. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. xii + 547. Options, Futures, and Other Derivative Securities. By JOHN HULL. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1989. Pp. xviii + 341. The Theory of Finance: Evidence and Applications. By JOHN D. MARTIN, SAMUEL H. COX, JR., and RICHARD D. MACMINN. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1988. Pp. xxvi + 709.     

Benign sacerdotalist or pious assailant. The rise of the professional accountant in British management

Matthews et al.'s The Priesthood of Industry [Matthews, D., Anderson, M., & Edwards, J.R. (1998). The preisthood of industry. The rise of the professional accountant in British management. Oxford: Oxford University Press] charts the encroachment of professional accountants into the realms of management in Britain. It is suggested in this review essay that the brand of economic determinism employed by the authors offers a partial explanation for that fundamental occupational shift. The functionalist and evolutionary foundation of Matthews et al.'s analysis invite a more critical interpretation of the accountants' stratagem. A reading of The Priesthood of Industry also indicates several issues which require the attention of accounting historians. Among these are the shifting character of the professional ideology; responses to entrepeneurialism; the social derivation of professionals; the manner of jurisdictional capture; a fuller understanding of the inter-war climacteric; and the contribution or otherwise of accountants to British economic decline.     

Measurement of formal harmonization progress:: The IASC experience

As a result of globalization, the accounting profession has become increasingly aware of the need to establish a single set of accounting standards that would be valid in the international arena. Recent events highlight the timeliness of this study, which provides an empirical measurement of International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) progress throughout its harmonization history. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, a new measure of the advances achieved through formal harmonization and second, to use this methodology to evaluate the IASC achievements all through its standard-setting activity. Our results prove that the IASC has made great progress in regard to the level of harmony achieved through the accounting standards it has issued or revised. Nevertheless, we conclude that the IASC needs to continue working towards greater formal harmonization. Our study also indicates research directions that could advance the study of formal harmonization. This specific area of research has generally been disregarded in the existing literature, a trend we would like to see reversed, considering that its application can provide valuable insight for standard-setting processes, especially now that the accounting community is so conscious of the need to advance the harmonization process.     

Auditing government revenues in Iraq

This article looks at the sources of government revenue in Iraq. It shows the level of the country's dependency on oil revenues and highlights the consequent need to diversify government revenue sources and move to a more stable situation, which is appropriate for a developing country. The study comments on the role of auditing to secure the revenue streams and minimize opportunities for corruption.     

国际会计准则委员会核心准则的未来——美国SEC和FASB的反应

本文讨论和分析国际会计准则委员会核心准则的过去与未来。着重研究来自IOSCO成员对核心准则的反应 ,特别是关注美国的反应。笔者相信 :接受和应用一套单一的、高质量的核心准则是未来的趋势。随着核心准则的改进将更加可比、透明和充分披露 ,越来越多的包括美国在内的国家和地区将会接受外国私人证券发行人按国际会计准则编制的财务报表。因此 ,对于核心准则的前途 ,作者的结论是 :前景是光明的 ,而道路是曲折的     

Convergence of utility functions and convergence of optimal strategies

In this paper we study the stability (in the L ^p as well as for the almost sure convergence sense) of the optimal investment-consumption strategy with respect to the choice of the utility function.Received: February 2003, The authors want to thank an anonymous referee as well as an associate editor for their useful comments and suggestions (in particular, the development on the speed of convergence). The authors also thank R. A. Dana for helpful discussions and W. Schachermayer for careful reading.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment. By R. GLENN HUBBARD. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990. Pp. ix + 343. Japanese Takeovers: The Global Contest for Corporate Control. By W. CARL KESTER. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1991. Pp. xxii + 298. Breaking Financial Boundaries: Global Capital, National Deregulation, and Financial Services Firms. By DAVID M. MEERSCHWAM. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1991. Pp. ix + 306. The S&L Debacle: Public Policy Lessons for Bank and Thrift Regulation. by LAWRENCE J. WHITE. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xiv + 308.     

International Accounting Standards: An Alternative Rationale

International aspects of financial reporting have begun to receive an increasing amount of attention by a range of organizations. There is a need then, to appraise critically the performance and the underlying rationale of those agencies responsible for influencing international practices. Identification and appraisal of the rationale underlying the existence of those agencies is a necessary step in determining their potential for achieving the objectives which they have been set. This paper examines the rationale behind one of these agencies, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC, 1977). Unlike many others, the paper does not attempt to explain why we should have an organization such as the IASC and the standards it produces. Rather, it represents an attempt to explain why we do have an organization such as the IASC. To that end, an alternative rationale is suggested for the output of the IASC, based on theories of professional selfinterest, agency, and property rights. It is argued that that rationale is likely to have significantly greater explanatory power in respect of the present output produced by the IASC than those traditionally presented.     

Further reading

On the Dynamics of Growth and Debt By Casper van Ewijk Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. viii + 220pp. ISBN 0 19 828346 6.

Hillier, B. (1991), The Macroeconomic Debate: Models of the Closed and Open Economy. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Citizens, Consumers and Councils By John Gyford Macmillan, London, 1991. 215pp. Hard cover £35.00, ISBN 0 333 52534 5; paper cover £9.99, ISBN 0 333 52535 3.

Trapped in Poverty ? Labour‐Market Decisions in Low‐Income Households By Bill Jordan, Simon James, Helen Kay and Marcus Redley Routledge, London, 1992. 350 pp. £40.00.

Politics and Policy‐Making in Northern Ireland By Michael Connolly. Philip Allan, Hemel Hempstead, 1990. 178 pp.     

The use of organic models of control in JIT firms: generalising Woodward’s findings to modern manufacturing practices

Prior research indicates that technology plays an important role in the determination of management control systems. A fully developed JIT system represents a radical departure from the traditional approach to organising and managing mass production. In probing the management control implications of JIT, this study extends some well-established concepts from organisation theory to the modern manufacturing practices literature to develop a framework which suggests that mass production firms adopting JIT (a new technology) must abandon a mechanistic management control system and adopt an organic model of control. Findings from three case studies describing the control structures used in JIT firms are also presented as part of the theoretical and hypothesis development. In addition, survey results are reported which are highly consistent with the framework, indicating that Woodward’s findings (Industrial organization: theory and practice (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.) generalise (are robust) to a new technology. Finally, a preliminary examination into whether improvements in certain key areas are higher for those JIT firms utilising an organic model of management was performed and found to be consistent with expectations.     

Pricing European-type,early-exercise and discrete barrier options using an algorithm for the convolution of Legendre series

This paper applies an algorithm for the convolution of compactly supported Legendre series (the CONLeg method) (cf. Hale and Townsend, An algorithm for the convolution of Legendre series. SIAM J. Sci. Comput., 2014, 36, A1207–A1220), to pricing European-type, early-exercise and discrete-monitored barrier options under a Lévy process. The paper employs Chebfun (cf. Trefethen et al., Chebfun Guide, 2014 (Pafnuty Publications: Oxford), Available online at: http://www.chebfun.org/) in computational finance and provides a quadrature-free approach by applying the Chebyshev series in financial modelling. A significant advantage of using the CONLeg method is to formulate option pricing and option Greek curves rather than individual prices/values. Moreover, the CONLeg method can yield high accuracy in option pricing when the risk-free smooth probability density function (PDF) is smooth/non-smooth. Finally, we show that our method can accurately price options deep in/out of the money and with very long/short maturities. Compared with existing techniques, the CONLeg method performs either favourably or comparably in numerical experiments.     

The ASB's Exposure Draft Statement of Principles: A Comment

This paper is based on a shorter comment sent to the Accounting Standards Board in response to the request for comments on the exposure draft, Statement of Principles for Financial Reporting. It is intended to be a comprehensive dissent from that ED, and also to suggest an alternative course of action for the ASB. In the first place, the ASB's position, according to which the provision of more fair value accounting (FVA)-based information is a central plank among its principles, is contested on the grounds of both (a) market incompleteness (entailing limited availability of reliable FVA-based information) and (b) lack of evidence of demand on the part of financial statement users for FVA-based information. In the second place, the ASB's approach to issues of recognition is subjected to critical analysis and found to be inadequate. Finally, the ASB's decision that the essential function of its Statement of Principles should be to advocate a set of recognition rules and measurement bases (including some that are controversial) is contested. Instead, it is proposed that the Statement of Principles should incorporate a larger framework, including a set of procedural principles, according to which the Board would reach conclusions on the various issues with which it has to deal, so that its conclusions would be seen to be authoritative because they had been reached by a process of rigorous enquiry in accordance with appropriate procedures. These principles would incorporate Rawls' (1971) notions of reflective equilibrium and procedural justice.