1、PDF外文：http:/ Observations on measuring the differences between domestic accounting standards and IAS Christopher W. Nobes * University of London, Royal Holloway, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey TW200EX, United Kingdom Keywords:International accounting differences,Rules versus practices,Biases in dat
2、a Abstract: In an earlier edition of this journal, Ding et al. use data in GAAP 2001 to assess determinants and effects of differences between domestic and international standards. This paper examines whether those data are suitable for the purposes of academic research by outlining the biases and p
3、articular features of GAAP 2001. The main problem with the data for research is that the differences from IAS that it records, which focus on rules, are of varying importance for accounting practice. This raises questions about the equal weighting applied by Ding et al. This paper also questions the
4、ir distinction between absence of IAS requirements and divergence from those requirements. Some doubts are also raised about the independent variables. 1. Introduction Ding et al. (2007) use the data of Nobes (2001) in order to assess the determinants and effects of differences between domestic and
5、international accounting standards (IAS). Many other authors1 refer to the same data for various purposes. As Ding et al. report, the data relate to the accounting rules in force at the end of 2001 in 62 countries, of which they choose 30 countries. The original data for each country were divided in
6、to four categories: absence of recognition/measurement rules (compared to IAS), absence of disclosure requirements, inconsistencies in rules (compared to IAS) affecting many enterprises, and inconsistencies affecting certain enterprises. Ding et al. add the rst two categories together as absence”, a
7、nd the second two as divergence”. As the preparer of the data (called hereafter GAAP 2001), I comment here on its nature and on its use in academic research, such as that of Ding et al. I do so under ve headings in Section 2. I then make some observations about their particular paper in Section 3. C
8、onclusions are reached in Section.4. As well as adding some caveats to the ndings of Ding et al., this paper might be helpful to future users of the data in GAAP 2001. 2. The data 2.1. Fit for purpose? Ding et al. (2007, p. 3) refer to the use of Price Waterhouse (PW) data in prior research, which i
9、ncludes that by da Costa et al. (1978), Frank (1979), and Nair and Frank (1980). Nobes (1981) had earlier noted that it is dangerous to use these data for academic research because, among other problems, they were not designed for the purpose. Does use of the data in GAAP 2001 suffer from this probl
10、em? Although it is not reported in GAAP 2001, the motivation for that survey was to protect large accounting rms from criticism (by the World Bank and others) resulting from the then recent collapse of companies and economies in the Far East. The survey aimed to reveal the existence of the large dif
11、ferences from IAS (or absences of requirements compared to IAS) in the accounting rules of many countries so that poor reporting would not be blamed on poor auditing. The objective was to focus the attention of regulators in any particular country on improving accounting rules rather than on attacki
12、ng the audit profession. As such, the surveys purpose was not to enable international comparisons, let alone to provide data for academic research. Nevertheless, as long as there are no systematic biases in the data, it might be reasonable to use them for research. For example, whereas the PW data s
13、tarted from a questionnaire that focused on differences between US and UK accounting (thus highlighting differences between these two countries), I am not aware of any such national bias in GAAP 2001. The reference point for comparisons was International Accounting Standards (IAS), which is a bias,
14、but this need not affect the purpose of Ding et al. This bias is discussed later (see Section 2.3). 2.2. Rules not practices In addition to the national bias in the PWdata, a further problem noted in Nobes (1981) is that differences in the rules (de jure differences) are mixed with those relating to
15、 practices (de facto differences). How does the GAAP 2001 data compare? GAAP 2001 does not suffer from this problem. It records only de jure differences between national and IAS rules, not de facto differences between national and IAS practice. Although not so serious a limitation as would be create
16、d by mixing rules and practices, the concentration in GAAP 2001 on rules rather than practices could cause problems for research, which Ding et al. do not discuss. For example,if a nations rules do not require a particular item to be disclosed but companies often disclose it in practice, then this a
17、bsence” of a rule should perhaps be ignored. Or, if a national system (unlike IAS 38) allows internally-generated research costs to be capitalized but in practice companies do not capitalize, then the divergence” in rules is perhaps irrelevant. Another aspect of this is that some de jure differences
18、 do not lead to de facto differences in a particular country because the issue is irrelevant. For example, the absence of rules on pension accounting is of little importance in China because Chinese companies do not generally run dened benet pension plans. More subtly, both inconsistency” categories
19、 in GAAP 2001 (see the rst paragraph of this paper)contain two types of inconsistency with IAS: (i) where the national rule and the IAS is incompatible (e.g. if the national rule required LIFO but IAS required FIFO), and (ii) where the national rule would not ensure IAS compliance (e.g. if the natio
20、nal rule allowed either LIFO or FIFO, but IAS required FIFO).The former inconsistency is more serious. Indeed, the latter may be of no practical importance (e.g. if companies using the national rule choose not to use LIFO). 2.3. An IAS bias The GAAP 2001 data were based on looking at accountin
21、g rules from one direction: the content of IAS. So, if a national system had more rules or more restrictive rules than IAS had, this did not show up. For example, US GAAP covered many issues on which IAS was silent (e.g. oil and gas accounting)； and UK GAAP did not allow LIFO whereas IAS did. Since these types of difference are not covered by GAAP 2001, they were not included by Ding et al. (as they note in their Appendix A).
