Why Do Politicians Intervene in Accounting Regulation? The Role of Ideology and Special Interests
研究利用美国公允价值会计和股票期权费用化的政治辩论，发现意识形态在会计规则涉及经济后果（如银行救助、高管薪酬）时解释政治家的立场，而技术性问题上特殊利益仍是主导因素。
ABSTRACT Politicians frequently intervene in the regulation of financial accounting. Evidence from the accounting literature shows that regulatory capture by special interests helps explain these interventions. However, many accounting rules have broad economic or social consequences, such as their effects on income distribution or private sector subsidies. The perception of these consequences varies with a politician's ideology. Therefore, if accounting rules produce those consequences, ideology plausibly spills over and explains a politician's stance on the technical accounting issue, beyond special interest pressure. We use two prominent U.S. political debates about fair value accounting and the expensing of employee stock options to disentangle the role of ideology from special interest pressure. In both debates, ideology explains politicians’ involvement at exactly those points when the debate focuses on the economic consequences of accounting regulation (i.e., bank bailouts and top management compensation). Once the debates focus on more technical issues, connections to special interests remain the dominant force.