Accounting, Economics and Law: A Convivium

Abstract The present paper addresses the following questions: Is non-arbitrary goodwill impairment testing possible? Would amortization be a better alternative than the impairment-only approach and, if so, should there be case-specific amortization periods or should accounting standards require a uniform amortization period? Empirical evidence suggests that non-arbitrary goodwill impairment testing is not feasible. However, academic literature provides very little in terms of a theoretical debate. To fill this gap, the present paper theoretically substantiates these empirically inspired concerns regarding arbitrariness of goodwill impairment testing and illustrates this substantiation with simple examples. Referring to the question whether an amortization approach is less arbitrary, it theoretically substantiates concerns regarding the arbitrariness of determining case-specific amortization periods. On the basis of this analysis, the paper recommends replacing the impairment-only approach by an amortization approach with uniform amortization periods.

Hendrik Sander

Accounting Economics and Law - A Convivium

Accounting for Goodwill: A Critical Analysis of the Impairment-Only Approach

商誉会计：减值测试法的批判性分析

Abstract Eric Monnet’s piece, “Democratic consequences of the insurance functions of central banks,” starts in exactly the right place. Monnet acutely observes some of the most fundamental issues with the dominant contemporary monetary policymaking regime. Most foundationally, he observes a gap between what central banks do and how they are legitimized. The consequence, in short, is a failure of the contemporary regime to justify itself on democratic terms. To overcome this failure, Monnet proposes an institutional reform—establishing a European Credit Council (ECC). He defends this proposal by appeal to democratic theory, particularly the literature on democratic theory that prizes ‘good deliberation’. While there is nothing wrong with Monnet’s claim that establishing an ECC would likely improve the quality of deliberation about the role of central banks, and in so doing, produce better policy, I argue here that this view misses something essential. Democracy requires more than accountability, transparency, and good deliberation. It requires democratic power: the power of the people and their elected officials to steer policy. Adopting this view of democracy, in contrast to the deliberative democratic view Monnet embraces, suggests a different set of required reforms. Instead of establishing an independent credit council, I suggest that we should be vesting stronger monetary policy guidance powers in existing democratic legislative bodies.

Leah Rose Ely Downey

Democratic Central Banking: Power Not Deliberation

民主集中制下的中央银行：权力而非审议

Abstract By formulating a proposal for the “democratisation” of the ECB through the establishment of a European Credit Council, Eric Monnet makes a fundamental contribution to the contemporary debate on central banking. This idea appears to be in line with other critiques that often see the post-World War II institutional set-up as a model to be revived to bring central banks back to democracy after the neoliberal disengagement of the 1980s. However, I argue in this article that the intellectual optimism with which these historical experiences are often viewed can be misleading. Going beyond the French “ideal type” and focusing instead on the “twin case” of Italy, I intend to show how the attempt to democratically control the central bank has not always been linear nor necessarily democratic and successful. The establishment of a credit council did not prevent the Bank of Italy from enjoying a high degree of independence and ability to influence policy. At the same time, the widespread system of credit policy that the central bank has explicitly promoted in pursuit of the country’s development agenda has often degenerated into irrational and opaque practices, revealing the side effects of an economy in which a sustainable boundary between fiscal and monetary policy struggles to emerge. While the Italian experience might show how problematic and “fictitious” the relationship between the credit council and the central bank can be, it can also offer interesting insights for a better articulation of it.

Mattia Lupi

A European Credit Council? Lessons from the History of Italian Central Banking after World War II

欧洲信贷委员会？二战后意大利中央银行历史教训

Abstract Two papers on the nature of equity and its implication for accounting and public policy are introduced.

Yoshitaka Fukui

Introduction: Who Are Residual Claimants on a Company’s Net Assets?

引言：谁是公司净资产的剩余索取者？

Abstract Eric Monnet’s European Credit Council (ECC) is an innovative, historically-grounded institutional proposal for supporting the ECB in the design of its monetary policy operations. In this commentary, I seek to strengthen the case for the European Credit Council drawing on work in progress on the history of the ECB. I first discuss the tradition of moderate interventionism as it appears in Monnet’s (Monnet, E. (2018). Controlling credit: Central banking and the planned economy in Postwar France , 1948–1973 . Cambridge University Press) study Controlling Credit . I show that the model of moderate interventionism was well-known to the drafters of the ECB statutes and efforts to categorically rule such policies out were simply unsuccessful. I suggest that this fortuitous choice has left ample legal space in the EU treaties for an ECC.

Jens van ’t Klooster

The Case for a European Credit Council: Historical and Constitutional Fine-Tuning

欧洲信用委员会的案例：历史与宪法的微调

Abstract According to the widespread, neoclassical market ideology, market prices are not simply helpful, yet imperfect, reference points for consumers and profit-seeking enterprises. Rather, they are interpreted as reflecting the true value of goods. The hypothetical end result of the market process – the market equilibrium – is thereby assumed to be an ever-satisfied condition of the market economy. Based on this unrealistic presupposition, this market ideology maintains that the performance of managers can be evaluated from the prices of the (net) assets they control and, in the case of publicly traded companies, share prices. The share prices supposedly reflect the value that managers create for shareholders and, thus, the economy as a whole. If this were actually the case, the maximization of so-called shareholder value would be a socially beneficial goal for managers. The present paper demonstrates, however, that the ongoing re-orientation of corporate governance towards the maximization of values (as revealed by share prices) instead of profits (as determined by the accounting system) destroys the very market processes that coordinate business activity and allocate resources in the market economy.

Eduard Braun

How the Neoclassical Market Ideology Destroys the Market: Shareholder Value Maximization as a Self-Defeating Prophecy

新古典市场意识形态如何摧毁市场：股东价值最大化作为自我毁灭的预言

Abstract Against the background of taxation, this article critically examines Schmiel’s commentary “Why tax planning without considering societal interests is unfounded” ( https://doi.org/10.1515/ael-2021-0115 ) and points out the overarching context. This rejoinder argues that the task and the object of my business tax research article, namely to analyse value-neutral tax regulations, in this case the ATAD CFC taxation regulations, with regard to their effectiveness and their achievement of objectives and to derive practical consequences for future tax legislation and further legislative development of the existing tax regulations. Through such an analysis, deficits in the effectiveness of the current tax regulations are revealed at an early stage and the legislator can react before tax losses occur (early information function). This is precisely how social interests are pursued and answered. Moreover, this rejoinder argues that in the area of taxation, it is exclusively the tax legislator who determines in the democratic legislative process which objectives, steering effects and (tax) burden effects it pursues with a norm and to what extent it pursues these objectives. The extent to which the legislator pursues societal or social interests with a tax norm is up to the legislator. This is the so-called assessment prerogative, i.e. the prerogative of the legislature (norm-setter) to decide on the appropriateness and necessity of a particular statutory regulation to achieve a legitimate goal in an ultimately binding manner, taking into account the interests of the state as a whole. This rejoinder rejects’ Schmiel’s claim to use critical rationalism as a methodological framework for research on tax law. From my viewpoint, only the objective will of the legislator (objective intention of the legislator, aim of the law, principle of legality) and the relevant legal principles and methodology as well as the methods of business tax research are relevant when it comes to examining the scope of application of current tax law provisions and their effectiveness, here the CFC taxation rules. Alternative theories such as critical rationalism, a philosophical view, appear to be too vague to ensure legal certainty and appropriate taxation.

Thomas Kollruss

The (Social) Tasks of Business Tax Research and the Binding Effect of the Statutory Tax Burden Decision

企业税务研究的社会任务与法定税负决策的约束效应

Abstract In Rating Politics, Zsófia Barta and Alison Johnson dig deeply into how and why ratings agencies act the way that they do and come up with a surprising conclusion: in spite of their very considerable global power, ratings agencies are above all driven by their fear of failure. In this short essay, I will take a closer look at this preoccupation with rating failures and draw out some of its wider implications for how we think about global economic governance. I will suggest that rather than seeing this fear of failure as a specific feature of ratings agencies we may want to understand it as part of a wider global shift towards more provisional forms of governance.

Jacqueline Best

The Fear of Failure: Ratings as a Form of Provisional Governance

失败的恐惧：评级作为临时治理的一种形式

Abstract This article summarizes the core argument of ‘Rating Politics: Sovereign Credit Ratings and Democratic Choice in Prosperous Developed Countries’, co-authored by Zsófia Barta and Alison Johnston and published by Oxford University Press. The book shows that credit rating agencies have become central actors in global governance by dint of their propensity to assign penalties and rewards to the political and policy choices of sovereign governments. It explores the logic according to which those penalties and rewards are meted out, and argues that these rewards and penalties not only constitute a violation of democratic sovereignty, but potentially undermine long-term economic growth and social and political stability, thereby also weakening countries’ long-term debt-servicing capacity.

短名
Journal Impact	0.95
国际分区	BUSINESS, FINANCE(Q3)

ISSN	2152-2820, 2194-6051
h-index	19

涉及主题	经济业务政治学法学财务会计计算机科学哲学社会学管理宏观经济学数学生物政治法律与经济学认识论历史市场经济
出版信息	出版商: Walter de Gruyter GmbH，出版周期: ，期刊类型: journal，开源期刊: 否
基本数据	创刊年份: 2011，原创研究文献占比: 100.00%，自引率:33.30%， Gold OA占比: 9.18%

Accounting, Economics and Law: A Convivium

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Accounting for Goodwill: A Critical Analysis of the Impairment-Only Approach

Democratic Central Banking: Power Not Deliberation

A European Credit Council? Lessons from the History of Italian Central Banking after World War II

Introduction: Who Are Residual Claimants on a Company’s Net Assets?

The Case for a European Credit Council: Historical and Constitutional Fine-Tuning

Accounting for Goodwill: A Critical Analysis of the Impairment-Only Approach

How the Neoclassical Market Ideology Destroys the Market: Shareholder Value Maximization as a Self-Defeating Prophecy

The (Social) Tasks of Business Tax Research and the Binding Effect of the Statutory Tax Burden Decision

The Fear of Failure: Ratings as a Form of Provisional Governance

Rating Politics: Sovereign Credit Ratings and Democratic Choice in Prosperous Developed Countries – A Summary of the Argument