Ethics and Accounting Policymaking: The Economic Consequences Issue
The issue as to whether accounting standards should be chosen for the consequences they will effect as opposed to the faithfulness of their resulting representations has been an area of much controversy for accounting policymakers. This thesis attempts to resolve the issue through an analysis of the ethical basis of the positions for and against the consideration of economic consequences. After discussing three schools of ethical thought, exposing the consistency therewith of positions taken on the economic consequences issue, and then developing the three schools in the accounting policymaking context, the centuries of debate in the ethics literature is brought to bear in the accounting policymaking context. The conclusion is reached that accounting policymakers have a deontological type obligation to pursue representational faithfulness, as opposed to specific economic consequences, through their policies.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign