Q1. Let us assume that the government has become concerned that existing disclosure regulation , tends to fixate on thef inancial performance of organisations but fails to address other aspects of corporate performance including a failure to provide information about corporate social and environmental impacts as well as about various initiatives and investment an organization has undertaken to improve its social and environmental performance .As such the government has decided to introduce legislation that will require business corporation to provide information about the social and environmental impacts of the operations as well as the social and environmental initiatives undertaken by the corporations .You are required to do the following.
a) Explain from a public interest theory perspective the rational for the government introducing the legislation and how the government will ultimately assess whether any proposed legislation should actually be introduced
b) Predict from a capture theory perspective the types of constituents that will benefit in the long run from any social and environmental disclosure legislation
c) Predict from an economic interest group theory perspective of regulation whether any potential legislation to be introduced will lead to an increase in the accountability despite any implication that this increased corporate accountability might have for the financial success of large heavily polluting organization.
Q2. The website of FASB( as at early 2009) states that FASB intends:
To promulgate standards only when the expected benefits exceed the perceived costs. While reliable, quantitative costObenefit calculations are seldom possible the Board strives to determine that a proposed standard will meet a significant need and that the costs to imposes compared with possible alternatives are justified in relation to the overall benefits Do you think that costObenefit consideration will be different in different countries?If so,how would cost benefit consideration be determinedby a global accounting standard -setter such as IASB?