Accounting for Changing Earnings Inequality in Costa Rica, 1980–99

After declining from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, inequality in monthly earnings in Costa Rica stabilised from 1987 to 1992 and then increased from 1992 to 1999. In this article, we use recently developed techniques to measure the extent to which these changes in earnings inequality were the result of changes associated with the distributions of personal and workplace characteristics of workers or the earnings differences associated with those characteristics. We present evidence that the most important cause of the fall in inequality prior to 1987 was a decline in returns to education. Inequality stopped falling in Costa Rica in the 1990s in part because returns to education stopped falling. The most important cause of rising inequality in monthly earnings in the 1990s was an increase in the proportion of workers working a non-standard work week (part-time or over-time).     

IPSASB’s Conceptual Framework: Coherence with Accounting Systems in European Public Administrations

Accounting and reporting systems in public administrations of European countries have deeply changed in the last 20 years due to the new public management wave and the trend toward international harmonization. This research aims to examine the possibility of implementing International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board’s (IPSASB’s) Conceptual Framework (CF), by observing accounting and reporting systems in the different governmental levels of countries selected and taking into account the embedded traditional characteristics of European countries. Results highlight how many structural differences still occur within and among countries, showing that much work is still necessary to obtain harmonization as implied in the IPSASB’s CF.     

The Impact of Accrual-Based Public Accounting Harmonization on EU Macroeconomic Surveillance and Governments’ Policy Decision-Making

This article sheds more light on the possible advantages (and the critical aspects) of introducing accruals accounting for governments in the context of European macroeconomic surveillance. This would add more balance to the discussion about accrual accounting, which tends to focus on the resource costs involved. The research it describes would, inter alia, show the impact on sensitive policy areas using a statistical analysis from EU countries’ official Government Finance Statistics. It also draws some conclusions on a suggested roadmap for public accounting in the European context.