Abstract

The research on Cost Accounting for government came from those developed countries government's efforts to learn and use some technologies or methods in business administration in the process of their performance management.In china, few studied the issues of the cost accounting for government.

On the basis of fully grasping the existing research, firstly we studied the government accounting information users of some developed foreign countries and our government, examinated and empirical analyzed their information needs about the government costs, which is the the logical starting point of government cost accounting study; Secondly focused on their research trends and summarized the experience and gains and losses of the cost accounting for government in those major developed countries such as the United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and on this basis our research put forward the theoretical framework of cost accounting for government which adapts to the situation of our country and includes some fundamental theoretical and applied theoretical issues of government cost accounting.the fundamental theoretical issues includes government cost conception, the determination of the goal of cost accounting for government in china, the position of cost accounting for government function in china, and principles of cost accounting for government etc; the applied theoretical issues contains the confirmation of cost obj ect in government and other public sector organization, the problems that introduce reasonably the traditional methods of cost accounting in the enterprise（such as ABC）and reasonable application of them, related problems also includes defining the government cost reporting entity, as well as government cost accounting reports design. But there are some obstacles of the institutional change in our country circumstances while introducing the cost accounting for government; so on basis of our country enviromental assessment, this book further studied the two strategies from the two aspects of institution sup-ply and implementation in order to successfully introduce the cost accouting for Chinese government.

The contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in：

Firstly, This paper studied some important issues about the theory of government cost accounting.Basis on the State functions theory、New Public Management theory、the theory of public goods、the the government fiduciary responsibility theory、system theory, this paper studied the basic theory and application of the government cost accounting theory; according to China's actual situation, The former expounded the basic content: the goal、the function、the main principles of the Chinese government cost accounting, and the government cost meanings; in order to break through the difficulties of government cost accounting, The latter mainly focused on the confirmation and measurability of the government“product”、the setting methods of government cost obj ects、the application of the government cost accounting metheds and the design of the government cost report.

The secondly, systematic study and analysis of the development of the major western countries government cost accounting.This paper carried out in-depth and detailed comparative studies and summary analysis about the development of government cost accounting of the seven major western countries, and got:（1）some understandings of the major western countries to promote the development of government cost accounting theory;（2）the condition and cause of the development of government cost accounting;（3）made some valuable experience and enlightenment about the environmental factors, research methods and reform path.

The third, research and analysis of the situation about the demand of the government cost information、Assessment on the currently environment if the government cost accounting were introduced now、the selection of the strategies and the design of reform path of the government accounting reform in our country.

The innovation are mainly reflected in the following：

First, about the theories.①research and analysis on the meanings of government cost, the following four standards were proposed and should be based on:caused by perform government functions、measurability、actually occurred、committed; ②in order to solve the measurement problems of the government cost obj ects, we put forward three there methods about the determination of the government cost obj ects:the survey method about the User needs、the decomposition/re-classification、Market-oriented government activities etc; ③the proposed ideas:about activity-based costing/management（ABC/M）in combination with the balanced scorecard for performance management in government departments; Reasonable selection of the business cost accounting methods based on the relationship between the business complicacy and ABC complicacy in the government and public sectors; ④put forward the short-term goal, the medium-term goal and the long-term goal of the Chinese government cost accounting; ⑤put forward the perspectives:Chinese government cost accounting reporting entity should be the basic unit of government accounting body which should provide cost information, and the Chinese government accounting entity should be extended to the scope of“general government”; ⑥the government cost report should be designed according to discharge the accountability of government.

Secondly, about the demand on the government cost information.We got the findings by empirical analysis:①there is a strong demand of accounting information users for cost information, but at the same time transmission mechanism of the Government Accounting information is problem; ③the government users of accounting information support the reform of the accrual government accounting; ④the external government users of accounting information support the introduction of government cost accounting significantly, but the views of the internal users of the government accounting information is inconsistent which shows that it should be treated differently to introduce cost accounting into government and other public sectors.

The third, two strategies about the introduce of the government cost accounting were proposed.①The strategies of the mandatory institution supply according to demand response; ②put forward the strategies of appropriate market-oriented for government and other public sector.and the reform path of the government accounting in our country was suggested:the horizontal path and the Longitudinal path.