IFRS Practices and the Persistence of Accounting System Classification

Abstract

The earliest paper on international classification of accounting systems is one hundred years old. For about 15 years from the late 1960s, many papers on the subject were published. One feature of several of the classifications was the dichotomous split of countries into ‘Anglo’ and continental European. This has been extensively debated. This paper prepares a classification based on the accounting policy choices made by the largest listed companies of eight countries in 2008/9. All the companies were using the same reporting rules, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This classification by IFRS practices shows the same two groups as a classification of national practices drawn up in 1980, despite thirty years of harmonisation. None of the classifications above or the more recent ones was based on the actual accounting practices of companies in annual reports. This has several disadvantages, as the paper investigates. This paper’s classification is the first to be based on accounting practices, as well as being the first in the IFRS era. The paper also investigates the implications of the persistent differences in practices for assessing the success of the IASB’s whole project on improving comparability of financial statements.

Keywords: accounting, classification, IFRS, policies

JEL Classification: M41