The profile of IPSAS-adopters

Abstract

Research question: What is the general profile of countries adopting IPSAS in accounting, institutional and economic terms? Motivation: IPSAS are perceived as the benchmark of public sector's accounting standardization. Their adoption becomes highly promoted by several institutional organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. Following previous literature review about IPSAS-adoption, researchers focused on only both factors (Ilie & Miose, 2012) and effects (Christiaens et al., 2015;Opanyi, 2016) of the use of these standards. Hence, this study focus on the specificities of IPSAS-adopters. Idea: This research aims to determine the profile of countries adopting IPSAS internationally for the year 2016. Also, it suggests an empirical treatment of countries' economic risk. Indeed, this axis was not treated by previous IPSAS researches. Thus, we add to the literature review by analyzing, empirically the profile of IPSAS-adopters. Data: Data sources are the World Bank, the FMI and IPSAS Board. Moreover, we propose two new measures for the public-market security and for the accounting-system's modernization and transparency. Tools: A logistic regression is applied to test the theoretical hypotheses. Then, the test of marginal effect was applied in order to detect the most common character among IPSASadopters. Findings: The result of the empirical study showed that IPSAS-adopters have a modern accounting system based on accruals. These countries have a flexible legal system and an internationally legitimated private accounting system based on IFRS. However, there is any relationship between "IPSAS-adoption" and "the publicmarket's security". Moreover, the test of marginal effect indicates that the most widely character among IPSAS-adopters the use of IFRS. Contribution: Determining IPSASadopters' profile is a new research's axis. It is useful for countries' stakeholders that look for accounting, institutional and economic profiles of these entities.

Adoption of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards in emerging economies and low-income countries: a structured literature review

“…Very few studies reanalyse existing data or use other techniques (e.g. Ben Amor and Damak Ayadi, 2019; Kartiko et al , 2018). We find no studies that use advanced methods such as experiments.…”

“…Finally, we reiterate a number of calls from the papers regarding studying the particular challenges that EEs and LICs are facing, such as the consequences of the global financial crisis about a decade ago (Amiri and Hamza, 2020; Ben Amor and Damak Ayadi, 2019; Timoshenko and Adhikari, 2010) and recently the COVID-19 pandemic. In the advent of the pandemic, reporting of balance sheet risks and guarantees and contingent liabilities have been key issues in PSA (Anderson and Burke, 2021).…”

“…The harmonisation of financial reporting in the public sector has been one of the major components of recent public sector accounting (PSA) reform initiatives (Manes Rossi et al , 2016). In this context, the IPSASs have become an international benchmark for evaluating PSA reforms (Ben Amor and Damak Ayadi, 2019; Polzer et al , 2021a).…”

Assessing the countries’ convergence to IPSAS from a cultural perspective

“…According to Polzer et al (2021), the IPSAS adoption in low-income countries calls for high investment, namely, in education, to gain new public sector accounting skills. Therefore, despite being subject to external pressures, countries with economic and financial difficulties may not be able to implement IPSAS (Amor and Ayadi, 2019). In this regard, those authors did not find any relationship between the country’s economic risk and financial dependency and the IPSAS adoption.…”

“…Al-Jawahry et al , 2022; Cuadrado-Ballesteros and Bisogno, 2020; Hamed-Sidhom et al , 2022; Tawiah, 2022; Tawiah, 2021; Tawiah and Soobaroyen, 2022). Furthermore, a few research has recently focused on the country determinants of IPSAS convergence, which include, for instance, the countries’ IFRS experience, the legal and the political system (Amor and Ayadi, 2019; Boolaky-Doorgakunt et al , 2022; Christiaens et al , 2015).…”