Title: Influences on, and Consequences of Accounting Policy Choices
Abstract: Accounting policies are specific principles, bases, conventions, rules and practices applied by an entity in preparing and presenting financial statements. The preparers of financial statements have an incentive and are in a position to manipulate the view of economic reality presented in those statements to serve their own pecuniary interests. In this principal-agent problem, the management files financial statements as an assessment of their own performance. Moreover, the management controls and decides upon the relevant information presented in these financial statements. Accounting regulation attempts to ensure that information is produced on a consistent basis in accordance with the rules that makes the financial statements more reliable for users. Nevertheless, the accounting regulation does not address the principal-agent and the moral-hazard problems. We propose a change of the practice in which the management is in control of their own accounting, controlling, and auditing mechanisms. Instead these should be passed to other bodies such as: stockholders and the boards of directors. However this has its disadvantages due to the lack of competences in accounting among these financial statement users.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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