The Path Selection Of Government Accounting Reform Under The Perspective Of Institution Change

In the1970s, the western countries launched a so-called "new public management movement" administrative reform in order to get rid of financial difficulties, improve the efficiency of the government, and enhance the comprehensive national strength. As the basic information of public management, the government accounting system has been in the forefront of public management reform. In the recent50years, the government accounting in developed countries mainly went through two stages. The first phase of the reform focused on extending the government accounting scope from the financial revenue and expenditure to the government assets and liabilities. The main line of the second stage is to change the traditional cash basis government accounting into accrual basis government accounting. Though all countries in the world have carried on the fruitful reforms on government accounting, which, to some degree, produces demonstration effect on developing countries, but the reforms vary from country to country, therefore the results of the reforms are also very different.In recent years, the government accounting reform is carried forward steadily, and a series of regulations and laws have been published to standardize the scope of government information disclosure, content and quality, such as The Government Information Disclosure Ordinance of the People’s Republic of China promulgated by the State Council in2008, The Accounting System of Institutions of Higher Education (draft) and Hospital Accounting System by the Ministry of Finance in2009and2011respectively.There is a heated disccustion on government accounting reform in academia, forming the following consensus:firstly, it is the introduction of accrual basis, comprehensively and truly reflecting the government’s financial situation; secondly, it is the government budget accounting and financial accounting separation, which makes the accounting information meet the government’s budget management and performance management requirements at the same time; thirdly it is the perfection of government budget accounting system, making it reflect the whole process of budget implementation; fourthly, the Chinese government accounting should adhere to a progressive reform, and coordinate with the whole financial system reforms to decrease the cost of reform.Theory comes from practice, and will guide the practice. Since the government accounting reform practice presses for theoretical study, in addition to the efforts and results we already have, the theoretical cycle also needs to have a deep disccussion on the pratical reform paths of government accounting. Through analyzing the government accounting information supply and demand equilibrium condition and system of equilibrium condition under the current system and the cost benefits of various interest groups in the equilibrium situation, the thesis finds out the motivation of the government accounting reform and puts forward a path in line with the Chinese characteristics of government accounting reform in order to carry forward the government accounting reform at the lowest cost.This thesis fully absorbs the latest achievements in institutional change of new institutional economy, path dependence theory and contingency theory of government accounting reform and deeply analyzes the government accounting reform process of contingency and the regular patterns of economic system reform over the past30years. It also studies the cases of two government accounting reform pilots of Hainan province, and put forward a progressive reform path of which the core content is incremental reform. The whole thesis is devided into five parts.The first part includes two chapters:the introduction and literature review. The introduction introduces the background, motivation, research significance, research methods, content arrangement, the frame structure, the innovation and shortcomings of the selected topic. Literature review introduces the existing research results from the following three aspects:the government accounting reform, institutional change theory, institutional change and and government accounting. Meanwhile, it also makes a comment on exsiting literature.The second part is basic theory part as well as the technical research part of the government accounting reform. Three aspects are included:institutional economics about institutional change theory, the dynamic mechanism of government accounting reform, and the goal of the government accounting reform.The third part is the part of the national research. by comparing and reviewing the development history of the government accounting reform in economically developed countries, this thesis analyzes the dynamic mechanism and path selection of government accounting reform of different countries, discusses the political game and institutional constraints of the government accounting reform and deeply explore the feasibility and the implementation measures of the government accounting reform under the current environment.The fourth part is case study.By studying the case of the Hainan provincial government accounting reform pilot and analyzing the dynamic mechanism and path selection of government accounting reform under China’s current environment, the research conclusion of part two and part three is inspected and revised.The fifth part focuses on the research conclusion and puts foward policy suggestions of the future government accounting reform in China.