With the rapid growth of international capital markets and increased cross-border financing, the debate over convergence has intensified. Supporters of convergence reason that convergence of accounting standards is necessary to produce comparability across financial statements worldwide. Opponents of convergence argue that differences in financial reporting are justified due to the differing economic, political, legal, and cultural environments across countries, making the adoption of a global standard not truly valuable to users of financial statements.
1. You are on the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) and must make a presentation to a national capital market regulator (e.g., the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or the Japanese Ministry of Finance) and a national accounting standard-setter (e.g., the Canadian Accounting Standards Board, or the Nigerian Financial Accounting Standards Board) stating why convergence of accounting standards is desirable. You have one week to prepare for these presentations, and you are drafting your speech. Make your case, pointing out at least three arguments in favor of convergence.
2. You are a financial analyst and consultant to Goldman Sachs based in the United Kingdom. Your job is to recommend which stocks the company should include in its portfolio. Over the last 15 years, you have analyzed hundreds of corporate annual reports and have gained a great wealth of knowledge about Japanese and German accounting standards, along with their economic, political, legal, and cultural environments. Your boss is convinced that IFRS will soon emerge as the global standard and, consequently, has asked you to use only IFRS-based financial statements in your analysis. Make a case on why using only IFRS-based statements may not be an appropriate measure of the operating performance of a company.
3. Based upon your responses to both scenarios, should convergence the pursued? If yes, to what extend? Explain.