外文翻译---国内的会计和国际会计准则

附录

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 data

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 particular 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 their 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 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 into 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. D ing et al. add the first two categories together as ……absence”, and 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 five headings in Section 2. I then make some observations about their particular paper in Section 3. Conclusions are reached in Section.4. As well as adding some caveats to the findings 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 includes 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 problem? Although it is not reported in GAAP 2001, the motivation for that survey was to protect large accounting firms 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 differences 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 attacking the audit profession. As such, the survey‟s 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 started 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, 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