Regulation

This chapter explores the literature on the regulation of financial reporting and financial accounting practices with particular reference to the growth and influence of international regulatory agencies. It reviews studies of accounting regulatory change from three perspectives: building and spreading regulatory institutions; the programmes and ideologies of accounting’s regulatory spaces; and the global imperatives, national contexts and regulatory contests that occur in these spaces. An important conceptual strand in the study of accounting regulation has been the work drawing upon political economy. Studies drawing upon political economy consider how economic, social and political systems and structures impact on who benefits from accounting regulation, where specific systems and structures - those of capitalism and financialisation - work to advance vested interests. Financial accounting and auditing arrangements were organised initially by the professional associations and, latterly, by national regulators for most of the twentieth century