The degree of determination of national accounting systems : an empirical investigation

  • In international accounting literature there are various approaches to assess the quality of national accounting systems with respect to specific key functions, e.g. the intensity of capital market information. An empirical approach often used measures the quality of disclosure by ranking the national systems with the so-called "disclosure index" (e.g. Choi 1973, Barret 1975, Cooke 1992, Taylor/ Zarzeski 1996). Concentrating on disclosure regulation in contrast to accounting practices, Cooke/ Wallace 1990 construct an index which measures the "degree of financial regulation". They identify groups of countries which can be clearly classified in highly regulated, regulated and moderately regulated national accounting systems. In our analysis, we want to enrich the idea of the degree of financial disclosure regulation to a concept for evaluating the degree of determination of financial measurement. Assuming that a high degree of determination of a national accounting system leads to more comparable accounts than a low degree, the index can be interpreted as a quality measure of national accounting systems according to the intensity of capital market information. The following hypothesis is to be proved: the degree of disclosure regulation equals the degree of measurement regulation in order to serve the information needs of the national capital markets. Three groups of different degrees of determination for national accounting systems can be easily identified which are compared to the results of Cooke/ Wallace. For some of the national systems the above hypothesis seems to be appropriate whereas some opposing results can be shown. Possible explanations are presented which can be causally related to these diverging results. They are based on historical developments, the differentiation between rules for individual and group accounts, and on conditions where different degrees seem plausible.

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Author:Anne D'Arcy
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-553796
URL:https://www.econbiz.de/archiv/f/uf/finanzierung/degree_of_determination.pdf
ISSN:1434-3401
Parent Title (German):Universität Frankfurt am Main. Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften: [Working paper series / Finance and accounting] Working paper series, Finance & Accounting ; No. 20
Series (Serial Number):Working paper series / Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften : Finance & Accounting (20)
Publisher:Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Place of publication:Frankfurt am Main
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Year of Completion:1998
Year of first Publication:1998
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2020/08/31
Tag:Comparative Accounting; International Accounting
GND Keyword:Bilanzrecht; Regulierung; Vergleich
Page Number:39
HeBIS-PPN:470252634
Institutes:Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht