Financial reporting is a complex issue. This free course, Influences on accounting regulation, looks at the historical development of financial regulation and reporting across Europe and the world. You will also examine how both Anglo-Saxon and ‘commercial code’ accounting have expanded to become the two main accounting systems used today.

This course examines how national practices for financial reporting have evolved and why different rules are in place within different jurisdictions. In times past, imperialism and war have both been responsible for expanding financial rules across Europe and the world. More recently the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in the United States has had the same, if unintentional, effect.