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The data expected from the governmental accounting, in which all the budget operations are recorded, and the reports based on these data couldn’t be achieved until recently. To meet the necessities of society, the most important instrument of the modern state aiming to maximize the level of welfare is the taxes collected from the citizens, and the state has responsibilities in front of the society playing a funding source role. Moreover, in order to successfully manage the public administrations, which nowadays have more duties and authorities, it is a necessity to make use of the management information and methods. Thus, the development of public accounting, which refers to the determining, recording, and reporting all the financial operations performed by the state, has become inevitable. Many international regulations, modern accounting systems, and modern approaches have been developed for the public sector. In the present study, it was aimed to emphasize the development and importance of public accounting for the management and administration of the state.

A long-time ethical issue in financial accounting is earnings management. Two popular ways that earnings are managed include use of accruals (Kothari et al., 2016) and real activities management (RM). This study examines the association between RM and short selling and an association between short sellers and RM behavior related to earnings management. Instead of using accruals, RM is accomplished by timing investment or financing decisions and thereby alter reported earnings. Our results show that short sellers avoid targeting firms with a high level of RM, but this only holds for those firms that just meet analysts’ forecasts. This result suggests that short sellers interpret RM as a signal used by companies to convey their “good news” and confidence in their future performance. On the other hand, the authors document that heavily shorted firms engage in a lower amount of RM, which is consistent with the notion that short selling plays an external disciplinary role in constraining firms’ RM behavior for earnings management. This chapter would be of interest to anyone concerned with earnings management, such as financial market analysts, investors, academic researchers, and, in particular, regulators, who are involved in setting rules on short selling.

Recognition, measurement and disclosure of public sector assets constitute relevant matters for national and international public sector accounting standard-setting. This chapter develops a theoretical analysis drawing upon a dualistic approach contrasting current value and historical cost accounting models. Accordingly, the latter should be adapted and then preferred to cope with public sector specificities, with a view to providing information for and enforcing accountability to citizens and their political representatives. Drawing upon this theoretical setting, our analysis develops a consistent design for the overarching conceptual framework for assets in general, providing illustrative examples for specific categories such as financial, heritage, natural and military assets.

In Turkey for a long term, the public financial management system was carried out according to the provisions of the General Accounting Laws No. 1050 since this law was in force over a long period of time. This law had not been changed for long years and it became far from the needs due to developing dynamic conditions and rapidly changing economic conditions. In addition to these factors, the emergence of economic crises, the need for reform and the country’s EU harmonization process increased the need for revision in this field. The Public Financial Management Project was signed with the Ministry of Finance and the World Bank in 1995 and the Public Financial Management system was renewed with the Public Financial Management and Control Law No. 5018 dated January 01, 2006.

Due to the reasons mentioned above, these changes in public financial management led to the use of the concept of public sector accounting instead of state accounting. Public sector accounting is defined as a financial system that provides data for the effective and efficient use of resources. In this accounting, the current accounting system needs to provide the necessary data. While obtaining financial data in an economy, it is necessary to obtain information about the economic situation of that country in a healthy and transparent manner also.

The main objective of this study is to address a number of problems related to the effectiveness of public sector accounting auditing and to propose solutions. For this purpose, the public sector accounting system in Turkey has been handled by giving basic information on this subject; problems arising in this context have been evaluated and suggestions for solutions have been proposed.

The study contributes to the literature on public value and performance examining politicians’ and managers’ perspectives by investigating the importance they attach to the different facets of performance information (i.e. budgetary, accrual based- and non-financial information (NFI)).

We survey politicians and managers in all Italian municipalities of at least 80,000 inhabitants.

Overall, NFI is more appreciated than financial information (FI). Moreover, budgetary accounting is preferred to accrual accounting. Politicians’ and managers’ preferences are generally aligned.

NFI as a measure of public value is not alternative, but rather complementary, to FI. The latter remains a fundamental element of public sector accounting due to its role in resource allocation and control.

The preference for NFI over FI and of budgetary over accruals accounting suggests that the current predominant emphasis on (accrual-based) financial reporting might be misplaced.

Public value and performance are multi-faceted concepts. They can be captured by different types of information and evaluated according to different criteria, which will also depend on the category of stakeholders or users who assesses public performance. So far, most literature has considered the financial and non-financial facets of performance as virtually separate. Similarly, in the practice, financial management tends to be decoupled from non-financial performance management. However, this research shows that only by considering their joint interactions we can achieve an accurate representation of what public value really is.

The Portuguese local government is subject to several controls that have evolved substantially throughout the last decades. This chapter offers a summary of the current state of these controls, particularly focussing on municipalities. The political parties of the opposition who sit in the Executive Board monitor all decisions. The Assembly exerts supervision and political control. The central government supervises legal and financial activities through a finance inspection body. The Court of Audit has a technical and jurisdictional control. Finally, the external auditor gives an opinion on the true and fair view of the municipality’s accounts, comprising both budgetary and financial statements. Because public financial management still mainly focusses on the (inputs-based) budget, conformity auditing takes precedence over other types of control.

Implementation of accrual-based accounting systems and the related preparation of an initial balance sheet are stimulating a debate on valuation and management of fixed assets, emphasising how critical it is to have adequate asset information. This chapter aims to propose a framework to clarify the relationship between the asset inventory and the asset register by examining the objectives and characteristics of asset information systems, drawing from experience regarding the implementation of asset inventories and registers from four countries (Malaysia, South Africa, Switzerland, and Australia – State of Victoria).

Purpose – This empirical paper seeks to explore how the shift from traditional budgetary accounting toward accrual accounting declared by the Russian state has affected accounting practices of one public university.

Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data for this research are based on a case study conducted in one state-sponsored university of Russian tertiary education. Our approach is to look at the emergence and implementation of new accounting practices and technologies at the university within the context of broader public sector policy changes occurring in Russia.

Findings – The present study demonstrates that changes at state level have had their initial and most direct impact on formal rules at the university, but little or no impact on its everyday management activity. We claim that the intended changes have so far resulted in more rhetoric than reality, and the changes envisaged have yet to be implemented in university practice.

Research limitations/implications – Since the time frame devoted to this research does not allow the assessment of the final results of the declared reforms, this paper approaches new accounting techniques before they become an established practice at the university. It is also beyond the scope of this research to judge whether these results are applicable to other settings, such as other Russian higher educational establishments.

Practical implications – The paper raises concerns as to whether the old compliance mentality of the Russian state will bring about the desired reform outcome.

Originality/value – This paper provides insights into the nature of Russian public sector accounting change, both at central level and in a specific organizational setting.

Government accounting shows the assets and resources of the government, the changes that occur in them, to provide the necessary information to evaluate the effectiveness of the government in revenue and expense management, and to produce the information required by economic management. In this context, the past, present, and future of the Turkish government accounting system discussed in the theoretical framework in the study.