Financialisation and the Conceptual Framework

The ongoing neoliberalisation of global economies has been well documented. Neoliberalism requires a commitment to a broad set of ideas about how political economies should operate, and these ideas underpin the transformations of practice in the process of neoliberalisation—both at a technical and conceptual level. Transactions within a neoliberal economy need to be accounted for in a way that accords with this broader set of ideas. Specifically, the growth of accumulation through financial markets has seen a concurrent growth in accounts that both reflects and reproduces finance at its centre. These accounts are more than just reports; they condition our expectations and support the production of further accounts, which in turn reinforce the dominant political economy. Despite the connection between neoliberalism, financialisation and the practice of accounting, the role of accounting in the process of neoliberalisation has received only limited attention. In order to contribute to a deeper understanding of these processes and to the role that accounting plays within them, this paper re-examines the Conceptual Framework (CF) to show how it forms an important part of the architecture of neoliberalism, providing coherence and legitimacy to its key ideas. The current CF project was jointly conducted by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), and is positioned within the broader literature on neoliberalism and financialisation. This paper shows how changes in terminology, shifts in notions of income and the popularity of market valuations (fair value accounting) work to normalise the speculative characteristics of financial markets. Through this newly configured globalised CF, the regulatory architecture of accounting may work to sustain the centrality of finance in a post-GFC economy, despite its many deficiencies.