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There is growing apprehension about climate change and the role played by fossil fuels. Exploration of renewable sources of energy as an alternative to fossil fuels reveals that there is no path forward toward a true green economy that does not have negative environmental side effects. Thus, the improvement of managerial and financial accounting to provide more environmental information and accountability by governmental and nongovernmental institutions is increasingly important in guiding us toward wiser choices. Since the 1970s, the increasing concerns about the environment in the United States have led to improved regulation and more comprehensive environmental reporting requirements and accounting standards. Also, global institutions have been created to foster voluntary reporting of both direct and indirect environmental impacts of their activities by institutions. However, evidence suggests that, while some large global firms have found it useful to engage in sustainability reporting throughout their operations, in general, the US organizational environmental reporting is not strong and is oriented toward the legal minimum when present. If we are to take account of the many direct and indirect ways in which our production choices affect our environment, then our institutions need to play a larger role in informing our choices. Both the Environmental Managerial Accounting Initiative and an enhanced balanced scorecard approach are recommended as frameworks for future efforts; public and private institutions must also include life cycle analysis in decision-making systems in order to enhance their ability to help achieve sustainable economic progress.

The focus of this paper is to provide an understanding to the economics of accounting crime. The accounting crime is considered to be part of the white-collar crime, where economists believe that white-collar criminals are rational men. Thus, this paper assumes that a person commits an accounting crime is a rational man. In making choices, the criminal managers take account of expected gains and costs from various available actions. If they estimate that there is a net gain from their actions, they do commit an accounting crime. External pressures, internal pressures, capital requirements, and compensation pressures are the circumstances that may lead managers to commit an accounting crime. The paper concludes by arguing that if white-collar criminals know that costs of their action are more than the benefits of the action, as a rational man they will not take that action. Thus, the most important step to prevent white-collar crime is to make the cost of the crime so high that it will never generate an estimated net gain for white-collar criminals.

State regulation of capital markets in the US and the UK climaxed soon after World War II. Thereafter, this “contested terrain” has been the site of a series of intense conflicts and struggles over the form and extent of regulation. Leading academic protagonists include George Benston and the Nobel Laureate George Stigler; both provided an intellectual spur for dismantling the apparatus regulating national capital markets. In essence, these theorists support market processes and oppose using the state′s bureaucracy as a means of regulation. Surveys literature that critically appraises Benston and Stigler′s work and provides an empirical test of a number of hypotheses derivative of their work. Using evidence from court filings and other sources previously unexamined in the accounting literature, reveals significantly high levels of security law violations among firms currently exempt from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing requirements – particularly where there is high information asymmetry between stockholders and management and where management are subject to profit pressures. Concludes that, in circumstances where Stigler and Benston′s assumptions fail to hold, market processes are ineffective in preventing securities law violations.

Studies show that, in practice, employers and auditors are not complying with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Consequently, this practice resulted in a 19% increase in citizenship and national origin discrimination in 1990. In addition, not complying with the act imposes significant financial burden on employers because the Immigration and Naturalization Services' fines may result in small businesses declaring bankruptcy. This paper explores how and why employers, auditors, and the government need to cooperatively work toward complying with the act. In short, the study advocates that employers must comply with the act to avoid monetary liabilities. External auditors should attest in their payroll audit that the firms comply with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards. Government should incorporate the act's requirements into Single Audit Act together with all Yellow Book audits. Finally, immigration policies must address economic, humanitarian, and ethical issues to protect the basic human rights of all United States residents, legal or not.

This paper presents some views for corporations and governments regarding how to cope with rapid changes in globalization and sustainable environments that have begun to affect the economy, society, competition, and technology. Shifts toward a sustainable environment have become facts of life for corporations as well as for governments, thus they must accept it and deal with it. Corporations can utilize the Balance Scorecard Approach to control how they could achieve a Pareto Optimality (or at least to achieve a Pareto Improvement) for themselves and the society as a whole. Meanwhile governments can make use of the Balance Scorecard Approach to determine what kind of incentives should be given to corporations (such as a tax relief) or what kind of penalties should be enforced on corporations (such as fines and/or rescinding a corporation's right to operate) in order for governments to achieve a sustainable environment for all living and future creatures of the world.

Freedman and Stagliano (2010) study the correlation between sample and matched companies’ revenues and toxic release. The sample companies were chosen based on inclusion in at least one of the three 2006 external reputational sources, which ascertain reputable sustainable companies. Their study uses descriptive statistics for “revenues” and mean difference test results for “toxic release inventory that is divided by revenues” of sample versus matched companies. The authors conclude, “We find no significant difference between the firms that are respected to be engaged in best practices with respect to sustainable development and those that have no such public recognition.” In this critique I suggest a contrary explanation. If one uses a descriptive analysis of the raw data instead of the mean difference test, one may conclude the opposite conclusion. The sample firms have higher revenues and their relevant revenues have lower toxic release inventories than matched firms. Thus, one interpretation is that sample firms were rewarded, by being able to generate more revenues than matched firms, so sample firms appear to be among the leaders in curbing toxic chemical waste.