Organisational changes of the public sector have led to increased decentralisation of public services. Only fully fledged financial accounting and reporting systems guarantee the consolidated information needed by executive and legislative bodies to fulfil their duties in financial management and the supervision of network entities. Consolidated financial statements may serve to increase accountability and transparency towards internal and external stakeholders. The article aims at giving an overview of consolidation approaches in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. It will focus on the methods applied and the guiding principles followed to define the perimeter of consolidation. The analysis is carried out through a comparison of legal requirements and standards for consolidation, and the published consolidated financial statements, taking the International Public Sector Accounting Standards as a benchmark. Points for practitioners: The analysis of consolidation practice in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries reveals that while the use of consolidated financial statements is increasing, there are still significant deviations from the perspective of international accounting standards. The results show that the equity method plays a crucial role as it is used in a transition period to full consolidation and/or for organisations having major influence on the statements of financial position. These findings are of interest in the ongoing debate of international standard-setting in the field of consolidation, as well as for the discussion of European Public Sector Accounting Standards

This article will describe the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) in UN System Organizations and consider technically controversial issues such as revenue recognition in more detail. Based on the IPSAS financial statements of 24 UN System Organizations, the article provides an overview about current funding schemes and key issues related to conditional contributions. Results show a heterogeneous funding mix for UN System Organizations while, overall, voluntary contributions remain the most important revenue source. The main accounting implication arises from conditional voluntary contributions with specified performance obligations, requiring an entity to defer revenue and recognize a liability. Although all analysed UN System Organizations report under the same accounting principles, there exist differences in the level of information concerning conditional contributions and outstanding performance obligations. The article concludes that IPSAS bears the capacity to increase overall financial accountability and to trigger management debates about issues such as resource dependency, topics being discussed by other contributions in this special issue. Overall it is argued that IPSAS shall not be seen as a mere technical exercise, but as a management tool to ensure a flexible funding scheme to successfully achieve an entity's long-term objectives. Policy Implications• See the implementation of IPSAS not as a mere technical exercise, but as a way to increase financial accountability and to provide better management information.• Use the newly generated information under IPSAS to trigger management debates about core revenue flows, namely resource dependency and flexibility.• Increase the level of transparency with respect to conditional voluntary contributions in order to properly inform and account for any outstanding performance obligations.

No abstract

Based on comparative, cross-sectional evidence of 15 Swiss sub-national governments this paper assesses the impact of different accrual accounting reforms on financial reporting and elaborates how this new information has affected decision-making processes. Results show that accrual financial reporting is a necessary instrument towards achieving resilient government finances. This paper embraces relevant questions for developed and developing countries, particularly in the context of heavily indebted public sector entities, ongoing accrual accounting reforms and the looming EPSAS promulgation. The paper reveals that accrual accounting reforms act as an important trigger point towards a more strategic use of newly provided financial data.

The NRP70 project 'The Future of Swiss Hydropower: An Integrated Economic Assessment of Chances, Threats and Solutions' (HP Future) addresses the challenges Swiss Hydropower faces in the changing electricity market environment. In particular it aims to answer four main research questions:1. What are short-term operational options for Swiss HP to cope with the volatile market situation? 2. What are long-term investment options for Swiss HP and how can uncertainty be accounted?3. What are the regional impacts from a comprehensive sustainability perspective? 4. What are the effects of different water fee reform options?The project started in fall 2014 and lasted until December 2018. This final report provides a summary on the main findings and recommendations for decision makers. 2 Executive SummaryThe NRP70 project 'The Future of Swiss Hydropower: An Integrated Economic Assessment of Chances, Threats and Solutions' (HP Future) has been initiated in 2014 with the objective to identify options for Swiss hydropower (HP) to adopt to the ongoing and expected electricity system changes.The project has been finalized in 2018 and this final report provides an overview of the obtained results and insights. Following a short summary of the main findings is provided. Troublesome yearsThe decline of wholesale electricity prices in the last years has initiated a cascade of effects within the Swiss energy landscape: companies' books were in the red and concepts for selling HP assets were issued, calls for subsidies emerged with the Confederation granting support for vulnerable HP installations for the next five years, water fee reduction and adjustments were put on the agenda, and overall the envisioned role of Swiss HP for the Energy Strategy 2050 was questioned. Even though the discussion has slowed down a bit, the 'crisis' highlighted the main challenges Swiss HP needs to address: market and political, legal and social aspects. The importance of those drivers has also been identified by Swiss HP stakeholders in a project workshop conducted in 2015 and the relation between market challenges and the Swiss regulatory and policy framework forms the basis of our assessment. It's the markets, stupid!The Central European market development is the single most important driver for Swiss HP profitability. Albeit HP flexibility is seen as a valuable asset and allows diverse trading strategies, our assessment shows a limited payoff in today's markets. Additional revenue potential from optimized trading across multiple markets is likely in a range of 10% to 25%. This in turn can be expected to be insufficient if prices remain below 40CHF/MWh for prolonged periods but could be crucial for cost recovery in the 40 to 60CHF/MWh range. Given that the future market development is uncertain and low price trajectories cannot be ruled out, the development of global fuel prices and of the European Emission Trading System are of central importance for Swiss HP. As influencing those market dynamics is out of reach for Swiss decision makers, companies...