Commentary on ‘Accounting for Inflation: The Dog That Didn't Bark’

Abstract

It is an honour for me to comment on this essay by Ray Ball. 1 Professor Ball's contribution to the accounting literature is significant and covers many areas of accounting. This essay deals with a topic at the intersection of accounting and macroeconomics, one of his many research interests. 2 Ball's essay observes that general price level accounting (GPLA), the system proposed to systematically adjust historical cost accounts for the effects of inflation (and deflation) using a general price index, was not successfully introduced in many countries, and does not currently appear in accounting standards such as IFRS or US GAAP. Similarly, specific price level accounting (SPLA) systems, such as current cost accounting (CCA), were not successfully introduced in many countries either. The essay asks why GPLA and SPLA (CCA) were never accepted long term by standard setters (the dog that didn't bark).A central point made is that GPLA and SPLA information is misleading. Ball argues that GPLA wrongly assumes that the real and monetary sectors of an economy are independent, when in fact there is a negative correlation between inflation and real economic activity-high inflation is often accompanied by low real output and low asset prices, as extensive empirical work in finance shows. As a result, the inflation adjusted historical costs of non-monetary assets are misleading, which I take to mean that they bear little relation to their specific current values. GPLA adjustments during inflation reduce reported leverage. GPLA also requires calculation of gains and losses on monetary items, and during inflation highly leveraged firms will report gains on their net monetary liabilities in the income statement.The point is then extended to SPLA systems like CCA. The argument is that individual firms experiencing economic shocks, either firm-specific or economywide, will be financially weakened at a time when their balance sheets under CCA appear stronger. Looking at firms in aggregate, for the average firm the impact of