Greater Harmonization of Accounting and Disclosure Standard Around the World

¶ … Harmonization of Accounting and Disclosure Standards Around the World

An increasingly globalized world has naturally led to the current efforts to achieve harmonization of accounting and disclosure standards across the globe. The desirability of setting one universal standard for accounting and disclosure, it is theorized, will lead to several large potential benefits such as: large cost savings for organizations (especially global ones) from the use of one set of accounting standards through the company and for all purposes; generation of cost savings to businesses such as auditing and other professional advice services to business enterprises; improved efficiency in the working of capital markets; cost savings for investors as a result of increased convenience in carrying out investment analysis through high quality, transparent information on a comparable basis; gains to business operations from reductions in the cost of capital as a result of reduced uncertainties in the information available to the markets. Overall, it is also perceived that one set of standards will lead to contributing to the objective of achieving macro-economic stability in the global economy when the hoped for benefits of greater efficiency of capital markets and improvement in the information available to investors materializes.

The benefits listed above are obviously highly desirable but the question really is whether the move to adopt a common accounting and disclosure standard on an international level is feasible. For one, accounting standards and style differ widely across the world, with differences getting accentuated even more between the developed and less developed countries and with varying cultural and political traditions, not to mention legal environments. Given the influence of culture and politics, harmonization of a common standard involves the collective political will of the world to adopt and enforce common standards. Secondly, there are several critical migration issues involved such as education and training that will involve huge amounts of initial expenditure. Third, there is the question of the complete absence of any current international standard, as yet, in certain areas of accounting and disclosure such as Insurance or 'reporting the substance of transactions' (a Financial Reporting Standard that has been widely credited with eradicating off balance sheet financing in the U.K.). There are, of course, several other issues that will also pose as an obstacle to the goal of harmonization, but for the purposes of this discussion, the stated three suffice to assess the desirability or otherwise of the goal.