Accounting in the Dual Economy

In recent years, the accounting profession has been faced with a number of unresolved problems. One of the most crucial has been the failure to distinguish between two separate sectors of the economy, the core and the periphery. This work offers a comprehensive study of this dual economy in which large organizations are clustered at the center while smaller organizations are arrayed on the periphery. At least two sets of accounting standards are required to adequately serve this structure, Monti-Belkaoui and Belkaoui argue, and just what these standards are, and how they would affect such issues as financial reporting, is the subject of this book.

The work explores the nature of the dual economy and provides a perspective on the way in which the concept operates. The authors begin their study with a survey of the theories and implications of the dual economy, and the issues of accounting validation in such a structure. In a number of succeeding chapters, they then analyze some fundamental accounting problems and their relation to economic dualism, including income smoothing, auditor switching, and bond rating changes. The work concludes with an examination of public policy and standard-setting solutions to the dual economy situation. Accounting in the Dual Economy will be a useful resource for a wide variety of professionals, including practicing accountants, financial managers, and legislators. It will also be an important supplementary text for courses in accounting and public policy.

JANICE MONTI-BELKAOUI is Chairperson of the Department of Sociology, History, and American Studies at Rosary College in Illinois. She has authored or co-authored a number of journal articles, which have appeared in the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research and Journalism Quarterly, among others.

AHMED RIAHI-BELKAOUI is Professor of Accounting at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of more than twenty books on finance and accounting, including Multinational Financial Accounting (Quorum, 1991), Cost Accounting: Theory and Practice (Quorum, 1991), and Judgment in International Accounting (Greenwood Press, 1990).