Can government accountability be enhanced with international financial reporting standards?

Abstract

International financial reporting standards seek to enrich governments' financial statements to meet financial information requirements under NPM. This article examines the usefulness of international accounting standards in terms of meeting the information needs for financial accountability, analysing their impact on audits. Changing from historical cost to fair value (FV) accounting could improve accountability if certain conditions are met in regard to liquid markets and practicality of FV estimations.

Acknowledgements

This research was carried out with financial support from the Regional Government of Andalusia's Department of Innovation, Science and Enterprise (Research project number P09-SEJ-5395) and from the Spanish National R&D Plan through research projects number SEJ2007-62215-ECON-FEDER and SEJ2007-67441-ECON-FEDER (Ministry of Science and Innovation).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrés Navarro-Galera

Andrés Navarro-Galera is an assistant professor in the Department of Accounting and Finance, Granada University, Spain.

Manuel Pedro Rodríguez-Bolívar

Manuel Pedro Rodríguez-Bolívar is an assistant professor in the Department of Accounting and Finance, Granada University, Spain.