The Securities Acts and public accounting: Financial statement audits as symbolic reform

Abstract

This article attempts to provide a new look at the goals and achievements of the accounting and auditing provisions of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934. While endorsing the view that the Acts, and the New Deal programs as a whole, were essentially conservative, the article argues that the impact of the Securities Acts was nonetheless significant, if in many ways unintended and still often misunderstood. The New Dealers’ hope in 1933 was that strict accounting rules would be sufficient to ensure reliable financial reporting. But their views evolved quickly as they confronted the difficulties of writing and enforcing accounting rules with the limited resources Congress had granted them. Over the course of the 1930s they came to realize that empowering the independent public accountant was the only viable means of policing financial accounting in the American system. Following Baker and Quéré (2014), this article argues for the central role of the state in accounting regulation.

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