Towards a comprehensive appraisal of global accounting harmonization: About the “desirability” of IFRS - A comment on Ramanna's “the international politics of IFRS harmonization”

Abstract

The article “The International Politics of IFRS Harmonization” by Karthik Ramanna is extremely insightful and his approach appears in many respects groundbreaking. One major refreshing result is that it does justice to those who think that this area of society is by nature, as technical as it seems, a political phenomenon. However, the approach chosen takes as a given that the fate of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) will depend on “The International Politics of IFRS Harmonization.” That leaves in the shadows some key elements that may well play a greater role and transform the course of events in a more powerful way. Among these are some additional geopolitical, macroeconomic, microeconomic and public interest perspectives. In that line of thinking, it could be interesting to study if, in addition to the two main factors identified by Ramanna in the politics of IFRS, one could identify another one: the “desirability” of IFRS for countries faced with the choice of accounting standards. This “desirability” would highly depend on the nature and intensity of the critique (both conceptual and fact-based) addressed to IFRS, but even more on the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) response to that critique. In the face of a robust and well-grounded critique and in case of a lack of response by the IASB, the appetite for IFRS should decrease, shrink or could even disappear and harmonization will not happen in that form; whereas in case of changes in IFRS towards better balance and consideration given to issues raised by stakeholders, harmonious globalization could effectively materialize.