Editorial : politicians and accounting information - a marriage of convenience?

Abstract

This Public Money & Management theme is dedicated to the stimuli and hindrances of accounting information use by politicians. In his debate paper for our theme, Donald Moynihan (p. 479) argues that politicians do not systematically use performance information or, more generally, accounting information: "That, at least, has been the conventional wisdom among researchers studying the topic."

However, he also stipulates that: "While performance data may not drive political decisions, it has become increasingly part of the backdrop in which these decisions are made…"

These quotations hit the core of this Public Money & Management theme, which explores the circumstances under which politicians are expected to use accounting information for decision-making, as well as how they actually use this information and whether they use it in a rational or political way. This theme originates from the 15th Biennial Conference of the Comparative International Governmental Accounting Research (CIGAR) Network, which was held in Malta in June 2015. An open call for papers was published in Public Money & Management and other media, which attracted substantial interest from researchers all over the world.