A cross-sectional analysis of recommendations for company financial disclosure and auditing by nineteenth-century parliamentary witnesses

Abstract

Parker (1990) argues that nineteenth-century British legislators consciously differentiated between regulated industries on the one hand and commercial and industrial companies on the other when enacting relevant company accounting legislation. In drawing this distinction, Parker presents a challenging perspective for explaining the development of nineteenth-century companies legislation. Given the importance of the argument to a better understanding of the period, this study subjects Parker's ‘industry difference’ hypothesis to further investigation and testing. The disclosure and auditing recommendations of witnesses before eight major select committee investigations are compared and analysed. Statistically significant differences were observed across industries. While parliamentary witnesses tended to recommend more stringent disclosure legislation for regulated industries, no statistically significant differences in compulsory auditing recommendations were observed across industries. One explanation f...