[ABFM] Financial Accountability & Management May

[G. Frederick Thompson]

Dear Colleagues:

The following article by Vinnari and Nasi in the May issue of Financial Accountability &
Management nicely complements the symposium on NPM on current issues and future
prospects, especially:

ACCRUAL ACCOUNTING REFORMS: ONLY FOR BUSINESSLIKE (PARTS OF) GOVERNMENTS by Johan
Christiaens and Jan Rommel. Financial Accountability & Management, Volume 24, Issue 1,
Page 59-75, Feb 2008; and THE NPM AGENDA: BACK TO THE FUTURE by Irvine Lapsley.
Financial Accountability & Management, Volume 24, Issue 1, Page 77-96, Feb 2008.

Eija M. Vinnari, Salme Näsi (2008) CREATIVE ACCRUAL ACCOUNTING IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR:
‘MILKING’ WATER UTILITIES TO BALANCE MUNICIPAL BUDGETS AND ACCOUNTS Financial
Accountability & Management 24 (2) , 97–116

Abstract: "Traditionally, the financial balance of public sector economic entities has
been determined by balanced budgets and cash-based or modified cash-based budgetary
accounting. Since the 1990s the superiority of accrual accounting in the public sector
context has been emphasized by both practitioners and academics. This paper demonstrates
that accrual accounting also offers opportunities for the use of creative accounting, or
earnings management, in the public sector, at least as long as accounting is performed
in accordance with diverse national norms instead of internationally acceptable
accounting standards."

If you found the articles by Christiaens and Rommel useful, you should read Vinnari and
Nasi's.

By the way, the entire february issue of Financial Accountability & Management can be
downloaded for free from the journal publisher's website
<http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/FAM>

-- 
Fred Thompson
Director, Center for Governance and
    Public Policy Research
Grace and Elmer Goudy Professor of
     Public Management and Policy
Atkinson Graduate School of Management,
Willamette University,
900 State Street, Salem OR 97301 USA
http://www.willamette.edu/~fthompso/

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=249171

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