Accounting Quality in the Accounting System of China.

Abstract

The first part of this work,”Accounting quality in the accounting system of China”, focuses on the changes that Chinese accounting system has faced throughout the years. I will start from the four main stages in which Chinese accounting convergence is divided, that took place respectively in 1992, 1998, 2001 and 2006. In the last section of this chapter, I will outline the further developments in Chinese convergence process.

The second part of this work focuses on accounting quality and its measurement approaches. The first part of this chapter is dedicated to the different definitions of accounting information quality provided by literature. In the following section, I will analyse whether the accounting information under IAS is associated with a higher accounting quality. In the last section of this second chapter, I will highlight the main approaches in the determination of accounting quality: accounting quality determinations based on accruals, based on specific accruals and based on frequency distribution.

The final part deals with accounting information quality in China. I will list the main reasons that can lead to low accounting information quality in Chinese accounting, and then I will analyse whether substantial convergence of the New PRC GAAP with IFRS increased Chinese accounting information quality. The last section concerns the main studies on the financial reporting quality in Chinese accounting.