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CHRISTOPHER NOBES and ROBERT PARKER, Comparative International Accounting, 11th Edition (Harlow, U.K.: Pearson, 2010, ISBN 978-0-273-72562-6, pp. xxi, 637). Information available at: www.pearsoned.co.uk/nobes
The 11th edition of Comparative International Accounting, by Nobes and Parker, continues to provide a relevant and challenging presentation of the rapidly evolving field of international accounting. It can be used at the undergraduate or graduate level as a stand-alone textbook. Its high technical level, however, makes it recommended primarily for graduate students and very well prepared undergraduate students with a solid background in intermediate accounting.
A major strength of this textbook, from the point of view of a U.S. reader, is its thorough discussion of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and its comparisons of IFRS to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The persistence of various national accounting standards, despite widespread adoption of IFRS, is addressed. The coverage of national standards other than U.S. GAAP is necessarily brief. The book is not a country-by-country comparison, but largely a comparison of IFRS and U.S. GAAP with many strong references to European practices. Latin American, African, and Asian practices are included to a lesser, but still significant, extent. Another strength would be the ongoing discussion of the political influence on the accounting standard-setting processes, both at the national and international levels. Comparative International Accounting is very comprehensive when discussing financial reporting, and less comprehensive in its discussions of management accounting, international taxation, international auditing, and international financial statement analysis.
The book is very well organized with inter-chapter references, and follows a standard framework from chapter to chapter. This is a significant accomplishment given that many chapters are written by different authors, some from the U.S. and some from European backgrounds.
Comparative International Accounting contains six parts. Part I explains why international differences in financial reporting persist in spite of the adoption of IFRS by members of the European Union (EU) and many other countries around the world. Chapter 1 lays out the structure of the book and suggests that global influences on financial reporting include world politics, international trade, foreign direct investment, globalization of stock...