Role of accounting in GFC

Discuss about the Stagnation in Accounting Education Research.

Global Financial Crisis (GFC) refers to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 that majorly affected the financial condition of the countries all over the world. For this reason, most of the economists all over the world consider GFC as the world financial crisis after the great depression of 1930 (Frankel & Saravelos, 2012). The beginning of GFC could be seen from the fall of the United States mortgage market. The GFC contributed to the development of major debates about the use of Fair Value accounting as this accounting process has been held responsible for the root cause of GFC (Chor & Manova, 2012). The aim of this report is to discover the role of accounting in GFC and the actions of various financial authorities towards the solution of GFC.

From the above discussion, it can be seen that fair value accounting process had a major contribution towards the GFC. On an overall basis, it can be seen that the accounting standards had major contributions towards the happening of GFC. At the prior period of Global Financial Crisis, with the help of special purpose, the banks scrutinized their loans and they sold them on the capital market. The banks took this step in order to maximize their profitability. At that time, the process of fair value accounting was developed based on the current accounting practice and requirements. The year of 2008 was considered as the year of prosperity for the United State market and at that time, wealth was considered as one of the major prosperity (Kothari & Lester, 2012). However, it has been seen that at that time, the companies used to generate wealth with the help of poor lending practice and poor accounting regulatory practices. However, the accounting standards at that time could not enable the financial institutions to record the inflated revenues related to the home loans. It has been seen that the use of fair value accounting allow the banks to increase their financial leverage at the time of financial boom and later, this reason made the financial statements of those banks more vulnerable. Thus, this whole process contributed to the development of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. Thus, from the above discussion, it can be seen that the accounting standards and policies played a huge role in the manipulation of financial statements of the banks regarding the home loans. Later in the year, the companies started to blame the accountants of the companies to manipulate the financial statements and it can be considered as the beginning of Global Financial Crisis. As the results, people of America started to consume less, the companies started to lay off the employees that led to major unemployment. From the above analysis, it can be seen that the accounting standards were majorly responsible for Global Financial Crisis.

Actions taken by IASB

In response to the Global Financial Crisis, the International Accounting Standard Board has taken some actions to avoid this kind of issue further. They are mentioned below:

• IASB has taken initiative for the improvements of off balance sheet items. On a more precise note, IASB has published some specific proposals in order to improve and strengthen the requirements to identify the control entities.
• IASB and US Financial Accounting Standard Board have taken joint initiative to include new disclosure requirements regarding impairments in order to come to the common outcomes (Mala & Chand, 2012).
• Both IASB and FASB have taken joint initiatives for the addressing of braider accounting issues of impairments on a global basis.
• IASB has also taken step to ensure the fact about treating the credit-linked investments between the principles of IASB and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
  • IASB has also ensures that embedded derivatives are assessed for the reclassification of financial assets (Mala & Chand, 2012).

From the above-discussion, it can be seen that IASB has taken some of the major steps in response to the Global Economic Crisis. In this process, IASB has also has also made coordination with US Financial Accounting Standard Board. All these steps have utmost importance in avoiding the further occurrence of Global Economic Crisis. As per the earlier discussions, it can be seen that accounting standards were majorly responsible for the occurrence of Global Financial Crisis. In this situation, it needs to be mentioned that the steps undertaken by IASB will be able to diminish the loopholes in accounting standards. In addition, there are some of the provisions of IASB that will make sure that this type of financial crisis never happen in the future (Erkens, Hung & Matos, 2012).

It can be seen that there are many differences between the present IASB accounting standards and the prior accounting standards. The previous accounting standards were not appropriate as there were many problems associated with the prior accounting standards. The first problem is the high cost. In the prior periods, it can be seen that the companies had to bear large costs at the time of the adoption of accounting standards. For this reason, the small companies were not able to adopt the accounting standards of IASB (Henderson et al., 2015). This amount of high costs used to created financial burdens on the companies. The second problem is that it was prone to financial manipulation. With the help of prior accounting standards, the companies were able to create their desired financial results. This was the root cause of the manipulation of financial statements. This aspect had a large role to play in the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 to 2008. Another major problem was the lack of global acceptance of these accounting standers. These are the major problems associated with the prior accounting standards (Brink, 2013).

From the earlier discussion, it can be seen that the adoption of fair value accounting was one of the major reasons of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 to 2008. A large portion of accountants all over the world still believes that fair value accounting was one of the prime reasons of Global Financial Crisis. Majorly, for this reason, the International Accounting Standard Board decided to take corrective actions to bring improvements in the process of fair value accounting. The improvements in fair value accounting will make the companies able to value their assets and liabilities based on the actual market value. Correct valuation of assets and liabilities of the companies reduces the scope of manipulation of the financial statements of the companies (Rebele & Pierre, 2015).

Problems with prior accounting standards

It has been seen that the accounting boards all over the world has been developing strategies in order to fight the major issue of Global Financial Crisis. In this regard, it needs to be mentioned that the Australian Accounting Standard Board (AASB) has also decided to contribute towards diminishing the effects of Global Financial Crisis. For this reason, AASB has been taken major steps in order to support the efforts of International Financial Reporting System (IFRS) (Majercakova & Skoda, 2015). Over the years, it has been seen that AASB has been reviewing the major accounting issues so that they become able to develop strategies for fighting the issues of Global Financial Crisis. One of the major steps taken by AASB is the reclassification of financial assets. In this context, AASB has been providing massive help to IASB for addressing the differences between the regulations of IFRS and US GAAP. In addition, AASB has contributed towards the amendment of IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. The major reasons behind these amendments are to make it sure, that the Australian Constituents can get the same treatment available as IFRS. Apart from this, AASB has been taking major other initiatives as a response of Global Financial Crisis. In addition, AASB has held many roundtable meetings with the accounting authorities of the other countries like London, Tokyo and New York so that they can discuss the Global Financial Crisis issues together so that they can come up to a coordinative solution. Apart from this, AASB has been taking several other steps in response to the issue of Global Financial Crisis. For example, AASB and IASB has are working together to enhance the disclosure of financial statements about liquidity risks. Another example is to bring impairments in the accounting treatments of market derivatives. These are the major steps taken by AASB in response to the Global Financial Crisis (Jianu, ?urlea & Gu?atu, 2015).

In July 2001, AASB issued the exposure draft ED 102 that is called “International Convergence and Harmonization Policy”. The main objective of this policy is to achieve and implement one single accounting system all over the world with the assistance of IASB. Thus, it can be seen that IASB and AASB has major roles to play in international convergence (Chen, Ding & Xu, 2014).

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be seen that the accounting standards played a crucial role in the development of Global Financial Crisis of 2007 to 2008. In this context, the above discussion shows that the fair value accounting system is held majorly responsible for Global Financial Crisis. From this analysis, it can be observed that the prior accounting principles have lot of accounting problems. The above discussion shows that AASB has been taking major accounting steps to fight the issues of Global Financial Crisis.

References

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Chen, C. J., Ding, Y., & Xu, B. (2014). Convergence of accounting standards and foreign direct investment. The International Journal of Accounting, 49(1), 53-86.

Chor, D., & Manova, K. (2012). Off the cliff and back? Credit conditions and international trade during the global financial crisis. Journal of international economics, 87(1), 117-133.

Erkens, D. H., Hung, M., & Matos, P. (2012). Corporate governance in the 2007–2008 financial crisis: Evidence from financial institutions worldwide. Journal of Corporate Finance, 18(2), 389-411.

Frankel, J., & Saravelos, G. (2012). Can leading indicators assess country vulnerability? Evidence from the 2008–09 global financial crisis. Journal of International Economics, 87(2), 216-231.

Henderson, S., Peirson, G., Herbohn, K., & Howieson, B. (2015). Issues in financial accounting. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Jianu, I., ?urlea, C., & Gu?atu, I. (2015). The Reporting and Sustainable Business Marketing. Sustainability, 8(1), 23.

Kothari, S. P., & Lester, R. (2012). The role of accounting in the financial crisis: Lessons for the future. Accounting Horizons, 26(2), 335-351.

Majercakova, D., & Skoda, M. (2015). Fair value in financial statements after financial crisis. Journal of Applied Accounting Research, 16(3), 312-332.

Mala, R., & Chand, P. (2012). Effect of the global financial crisis on accounting convergence. Accounting & Finance, 52(1), 21-46.

Rebele, J. E., & Pierre, E. K. S. (2015). Stagnation in accounting education research. Journal of Accounting Education, 33(2), 128-137.