Accounting standards for government accounts

RESCHEDULED EVENT FROM DECEMBER 2011

In the current framework, investors in governments’ securities often do not have access to information that would offer a comparable level of quality and comparability to the disclosures available for corporate bonds or equity. The Eurozone crisis has highlighted this challenge.

Could international accounting standards for governments be a solution? IFAC, the global body for the accountancy profession, has hosted a board that sets International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) since 1999. What are the lessons from this experience? What makes governmental financial reporting different from private-sector accounting? Which are the main obstacles for the achievement of a single global accounting language for the public sector? Did the present crisis strengthen or undermine the role of IPSASs?

Speakers

Ian Ball has been IFAC’s Chief Executive Officer since March 2002. From 1987 through 1994, Mr. Ball was Director of Financial Management Policy and then Central Financial Controller at the New Zealand Treasury. He then created an independent public sector management consultancy and became Professor of Accounting and Public Policy at Victoria University in Wellington. Starting in 1993, he was instrumental in initiating the program to set IPSAS. He holds a Ph.D. in local government finance and administration from the University of Birmingham in the UK.

Alexandre Makaronidis heads the unit that results from the enlarged powers conferred to Eurostat in the context of the excessive deficit procedure, and is in charge of risk and quality management for government finance statistics, government accounting and the verification of primary government finance. He joined Eurostat in 1989 and headed its Price Statistics Unit from 2006 to 2010. He holds a management degree and a PhD in Econometrics from Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich.

The discussion was moderated by Nicolas Véron, Senior Fellow at Bruegel and Visiting Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Download the presentations of this event

- Towards implementing harmonised ‘primary’ public finance accounting in EU Member States by Alexandre Makaronidis FILE

- Accounting standards for governments by Ian Ball FILE