Publication Type

Transcript

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

8-2021

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to create the worst economic recession in our lifetime and generate “enormous damage to our health, jobs, and well-being” (OECD, 2020). This special issue focuses on the lessons for accounting and finance policy-makers, practitioners, and academics as a result of the social and economic turmoil that arose in the immediate period following the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic (WHO, 2020). Governments responded to support businesses and economies using various policy tools to support markets, businesses and individuals impacted by the pandemic. It is timely to consider the extent to which policymakers and standard-setters have succeeded in addressing these problems, and to consider to what extent accounting and finance tools available were “fit-for-purpose”. Different countries reacted in different ways to the COVID-19 pandemic and experienced different infection and fatality rates. For example, the New Zealand government announced an alert level system on 21 March 2020. New Zealand moved immediately into Alert level 2, two days later into Alert level 3, Alert level 4 another two days later. New Zealand therefore used a very strict lockdown implemented quickly, with the aim of eliminating the virus from the community as soon as possible. Other countries followed different approaches. The New Zealand approach worked well in terms of the demographics and relative isolation of the country. It is therefore of interest to consider the implications of COVID-19 across countries both within this special issue with views from different Pacific Basin countries and across COVID-19 special issues in different accounting and finance journals around the world. Since COVID-19 has important social and economic impacts, there is a need for organisations, including businesses, the public sector, the education sector, and NGOs to inform their stakeholders as to how they are dealing with the pandemic. This includes providing information on how they dealt with the initial threat and kept their stakeholders (i.e. employees and customers) safe, as well as how the pandemic impacted their ongoing operations. Society was obviously initially concerned about the threat of illness and death from contracting the disease, but as that threat was addressed through distancing and other measures, the next concern became ongoing income for basic needs. Details on how organisations supported their employees and customers therefore became important. Information on wage and other government subsidies that businesses received and whether they were entitled to it, as well as information regarding staff layoffs, profits earned and dividends paid during the pandemic are very relevant. The role of accounting and finance to provide reliable information both of a financial and social nature is important to help improve transparency and build trust.

Keywords

Accounting, finance, Pacific Basin, COVID-19, pandemics

Discipline

Accounting | Asian Studies | Finance and Financial Management

Research Areas

Finance

Publication

Pacific Accounting Review

Volume

33

Issue

2

First Page

161

Last Page

164

ISSN

0114-0582

Identifier

10.1108/PAR-04-2021-200

Publisher

Emerald

Copyright Owner and License

Publisher

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1108/PAR-04-2021-200

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