Towards convergence of government financial statistics and accounting in Europe at central and local levels

Hacia la convergencia de las estadísticas de las finanzas públicas y la contabilidad pública en Europa a nivel central y local

Authors

  • Rosa Mª Dasí González Professor, Departament de Comptabilitat, Faculty of Economics, University of Valencia
  • Vicente Montesinos Julve Professor, Departament de Comptabilitat, Faculty of Economics, University of Valencia
  • Jose Manuel Vela Bargues University professor. Department of Economics and Social Sciences. Faculty of Business Administration and Management. Polytechnic university of Valencia.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcsar.2017.10.001
Keywords: ESA 2010, ESA 95, Governmental accounting, Systems of national accounts, Government financial statistics, Accrual accounting, International accounting convergence

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to study the convergence between micro and macro systems of government accounting information, looking to contribute to the analysis of accounting harmonization process in the EU, as a tool to improve the comparability of financial, budgetary, and aggregated statistical reports, in order to improve social, political and economic decision-making and accountability. All this is obviously located in the current context of the EU, with a high degree of harmonization of accounting standards between the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), and those applied for the preparation of national accounts, ruled by European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010).

We have carried out different analytical methodologies to study the convergence of public accounting systems in the EU for 2014 and 2015, considering that the new European System of National Accounts came in force since September 2014. First, for each country, we calculate a global index and partial indexes for central and local governments. Secondly, we apply an alternative model based on the distance between the adjustments of each country and the extreme situation, that would imply null adjustments. As a supplementary, we focus on the relative weight of adjustments by country and for each level of government.

The study concludes, among other findings, that the importance of adjustments differs between countries and areas of government. Adjustments connected to recognition criteria (accrual or others), particularly significant from the point of view of the approach to GAAP, rank first in importance at the central government level, but are less significant at the local level.

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Published
01-07-2018
How to Cite
Dasí González, R. M., Montesinos Julve, V., & Vela Bargues, J. M. (2018). Towards convergence of government financial statistics and accounting in Europe at central and local levels: Hacia la convergencia de las estadísticas de las finanzas públicas y la contabilidad pública en Europa a nivel central y local. Revista De Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, 21(2), 140–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcsar.2017.10.001
Issue
Vol. 21 No. 2 (2018)
Section
Articles

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