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Economic inequality: problems and perspectives for interdisciplinary accounting research

Dale Tweedie (Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)
James Hazelton (Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

ISSN: 0951-3574

Article publication date: 9 August 2019

Issue publication date: 18 November 2019

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to encourage and advance interdisciplinary accounting research on economic inequality.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors review prior research into economic inequality, including two new papers in this issue, to identify topics where economic inequality and accounting research intersect. The authors then draw on prior accounting research to identify frameworks accounting scholars already use apposite to analysing these topics.

Findings

Economic inequality cuts across major accounting topics, including measurement, reporting and tax. Inequality also bears on an influential agenda in interdisciplinary accounting research to hold corporations and states accountable for their impacts. Four prior research frameworks accounting scholars might apply to this agenda are: critical Marxian or post-Marxian; accounting ethics; advocacy; and disclosure studies.

Social implications

A growing body of social scientific research, as well as influential global institutions, social movements and political debates, raise concerns over inequitable global distributions of wealth and income. The authors explore ways accounting scholars can help redress these inequities.

Originality/value

While economic inequality affects billions of people, accounting scholarship is yet to give these inequities the attention their scale and social impact merits. The authors suggest ways accounting researchers can make substantive contributions to addressing this issue.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge participants at the Australasian Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (A-CSEAR) Conference at Macquarie University, Sydney, for feedback on an earlier version of this paper. The authors would also like to thank the two AAAJ reviewers for constructive criticism and feedback. Finally the authors thank the editors of the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Professor James Guthrie and Professor Lee Parker, for supporting this special section.

This paper forms part of a special section “JAMES HAZLELTON FORUM: Accounting for (in) equitable organisations and societies”.

Citation

Tweedie, D. and Hazelton, J. (2019), "Economic inequality: problems and perspectives for interdisciplinary accounting research", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 32 No. 7, pp. 1982-2003. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-09-2018-3649

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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