Accounting Reform

Accounting reform is an expansion of accounting rules that goes beyond the realm of financial measures for both individual economic entities and national economies. It is advocated by those who consider the focus of the present standards and practices wholly inadequate to the task of measuring and reporting the activity, success, and failure of modern enterprise, including government.

Real debate concerns concepts such as whether to report transactions, such as asset acquisitions, at their cost or at their current market values. The former, traditional approach, appeals for its reliability, but can quickly lose its relevance due to inflation and other factors; the latter, increasingly common approach, is appealing for its relevance, but is less reliable due to the need to use subjective measures. Accounting standards setters such as the International Accounting Standards Board attempt to strike a balance between relevance and reliability.