Government Accounting: An Assessment of Theory, Purposes and Standards

James L. Chan

Public Money & Management, 2003, vol. 23, issue 1, 13-20

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.

Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1467-9302.00336 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:pubmmg:v:23:y:2003:i:1:p:13-20

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RPMM20

DOI: 10.1111/1467-9302.00336

Access Statistics for this article

Public Money & Management is currently edited by Michaela Lavender

More articles in Public Money & Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().