Bulletin n. 1/2009
July 2009
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Caba Pérez Carmen, López-Hernández Antonio Manuel
    Governmental financial transparency in MERCOSUR member countries
    in International Review of Administrative Sciences , March 2009, Volume 75, No. 1 ,  2009 ,  169-181
    in the last century, the MERCOSUR member countries have carried out reforms aimed at achieving better public financial information for governmental decision-taking. Important changes are currently taking place on the international public accounting scene, and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has published International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), by which it seeks to ensure that governmental financial reports include financial information of sufficient quality to support decision-making by different users, and at the same time to improve the comparability of the financial information presented by public sector bodies throughout the world. In this article, we examine the consistency of the information included by MERCOSUR member countries in their current year-end governmental public financial reports with the public financial reporting practices recommended by IFAC, in order to determine whether further efforts are needed to improve transparency and comparability. Points for practitioners The article may help government practitioners in MERCOSUR countries to become aware of the divergences which exist regarding the governmental financial information offered by each of the countries in MERCOSUR. Moreover, it could help to set up a common project of account reform which would take IPSAS as its model. This unified framework for accounting policies would increase the coherence of financial information and would establish a common measurement basis to assess the financial results of all of the MERCOSUR countries.
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