IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/pubmmg/v23y2003i1p13-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Government Accounting: An Assessment of Theory, Purposes and Standards

Author

Listed:
  • James L. Chan

Abstract

Government accounting and financial reporting aims to protect and manage public money and discharge accountability. These purposes, and the nature of public goods and tax financing, give rise to differences with commercial accounting. This is not yet reflected either in government accounting standards in English-speaking developed nations or in international public sector accounting standards. All of these are heavily influenced by private sector practices, which favour the accrual basis and consolidated reporting. This article argues for a gradual symmetric approach to accruals and a combination of government-wide and fund reporting. The author also proposes some broad accounting principles to promote political and economic accountability.

Suggested Citation

  • James L. Chan, 2003. "Government Accounting: An Assessment of Theory, Purposes and Standards," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 13-20, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:pubmmg:v:23:y:2003:i:1:p:13-20
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-9302.00336
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1467-9302.00336
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-9302.00336?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    2. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    4. Marco Faravelli & Randall Walsh, 2011. "Smooth Politicians And Paternalistic Voters: A Theory Of Large Elections," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000250, David K. Levine.
    5. Eric Kaufmann & Henry Patterson, 2006. "Intra‐Party Support for the Good Friday Agreement in the Ulster Unionist Party," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(3), pages 509-532, October.
    6. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    7. Mihir Bhattacharya, 2019. "Constitutionally consistent voting rules over single-peaked domains," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(2), pages 225-246, February.
    8. Sven Banisch & Eckehard Olbrich, 2021. "An Argument Communication Model of Polarization and Ideological Alignment," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 24(1), pages 1-1.
    9. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    10. Peter Nijkamp & Marc van der Burch & Gabriella Vindigni, 2002. "A Comparative Institutional Evaluation of Public-Private Partnerships in Dutch Urban Land-use and Revitalisation Projects," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(10), pages 1865-1880, September.
    11. Vincenzo Atella & Jay Coggins & Federico Perali, 2005. "Aversion to inequality in Italy and its determinants," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(2), pages 117-144, January.
    12. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    13. Alan Blinder & Alan Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Working Papers 875, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    14. Francisco Martínez-Mora & M. Socorro Puy, 2009. "Off-the-peak preferences over government size," Working Papers 2009-9, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    15. Asmae AQZZOUZ & Michel DIMOU, 2022. "Tax mimicking in French counties," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 55, pages 113-132.
    16. Ernesto Dal Bo, 2000. "Bribing Voters," Economics Series Working Papers 39, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iepsg269m is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini & Linda Tesauro, 2021. "Designing Effective and Acceptable Road Pricing Schemes: Evidence from the Geneva Congestion Charge," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 417-482, July.
    19. Pratyusna Patnaik, 2005. "Affirmative Action and Political Participation: Elected Representatives in the Panchayats of Orissa," Working Papers 166, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.
    20. Rausser, Gordon C. & de Janvry, Alain & Schmitz, Andrew & Zilberman, David D., 1980. "Principal issues in the evaluation of public research in agriculture," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt74v9m7dh, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    21. Daniel Houser & Sandra Ludwig & Thomas Stratmann, 2009. "Does Deceptive Advertising Reduce Political Participation? Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 1011, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:pubmmg:v:23:y:2003:i:1:p:13-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RPMM20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.