Structural Change of Public Finance and Reform of Public Accounting

本文介绍了美国和英国公共会计改革的实际情况，以及日本地方政府在公共会计改革方面的一些尝试。这些审查表明，政府有必要通过所谓的政府活动报告向人们解释自己的真实财务状况。具体来说，由以下四个报告构成：（1）政府行为的概念或方针的说明（2）政府预算、现金流量平衡、资本损益的说明（3）反映政府政策结果的资产负债的说明（4）政府政策的影响和结果的说明我们使用日本的国民核算数据，制作了（2）的收支平衡表和（3）的资产负债表。前者包括按收付实现制编制的现金流量表和按权责发生制编制的政府净资产变动表。后者是B/S，由于权责发生制的存在，它包括折旧、退休债务和资本损益。将权责发生制引入公共会计，B/S上的50万亿折旧债务和22万亿退休债务得到了清理。此外，尽管自1990年以来，根据现金基础的现金流量平衡越来越差，权责发生制财政收支平衡从1995年开始急转直下。这些结果意味着，仅根据现金基础进行财务评价可能会引入不良的政策选择，产生意想不到的政策效果。

In this paper, we reviewed not only actual condition of public accounting reforms in U.S.A.and U.K.but also some experiments for such reforms in local government of Japan. Those reviews showed that it is necessary for government to explain the true financial status of himself to people with so called governmental activity reports. To put them in the concrete, they are composed of following four reports :(1) Explanation of concept or guideline for governmental action(2) Explanation of governmental budget, cash flow balance, and capital gain/loss(3) Explanation of asset and debt which present results of governmental policy(4) Explanation of impact and outcome of governmental policyWe tried to produce balance of revenue and expenditure for (2) and balance sheet for (3) by using Japanese national accounting data. The former is consist of cash flow table according to cash basis and changing table of governmental net worth according to accrual basis. The later is B/S that includes depreciation, retirement debt, and capital gain/loss because of accrual basis standing.Introduction of accrual basis to public accounting cleared up debt of 50 trillion by depreciation and 22 trillion by retirement debt on B/S.Furthermore, though cash flow balance according to cash basis was getting worse and worse since 1990, ballanc of revenue and expenditure according to accrual basis has taken a sudden turn for the worse from 1995. These results imply that financial evaluation according to only cash basis may introduce to bad policy selection and produce unintended policy effects.