Book Review: Financial reporting and global capital markets: a history of the International Accounting Standards Committee, 1973–2000

From January 2005, all listed group companies in Europe were required to prepare their financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and, in all, over 100 countries have decided to adopt or converge with IFRS. Furthermore, a memorandum of understanding between the US and International Accounting Standards boards was published in 2006. The avowed aim of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), in the words of its Chairman Sir David Tweedie, is to produce a 'single set of high quality global accounting standards' benefiting both preparers and auditors of financial statements of multinational companies, and providing investors with comparable information about such companies. Yet the introduction of IFRS has also been a 'quiet revolution', as one journalist has observed, challenging accepted accounting principles. By Kees Camfferman and Stephen A. Zeff, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, xxiii þ 676 pp., £75.00 (hardback), ISBN978-01-99296-29-3