Institutional Transformation, Enterprise Property Right System And The Accounting Model Changes

Property rights system is a fundamental institutional arrangement in a economy, which determines the efficiency of the economy and the welfare of the people. Economics research about property rights focus on the nature, the efficiency, the implication and the evolution rules of the property rights, while the technical condition is neglected. In fact, if there is no this technical condition, the property will not work, the definition, bargaining, circulation, and recombination of property rights will not be implemented. In real economies, property rights are organized by contracts (including express and acquiescent contracts), but to sign a contract it needs to define and measure distinctly the rights and the obligations, the contribution and the compensation of the transactors', which is generally undertook by accounting. The enterprise is a nexus of a set of contracting relationships among individuals, which is much more complicated than a simple contract. In an enterprise there are all kinds of interest-related parties among which there has cooperative production and conflicts of interest, so accounting is much more important. The property's moving in an enterprise, from entry to quit and the change of the form of existence, is measured and controlled by accounting system, so in practice, accounting has been a basic technical device for property rights operation mechanism, which has been a vital device to organizes various resources and coordinate all interest-related parties' relationship.There is a nature relationship between accounting and property rights. Looking from the property rights theory, the nature of accounting can be defined as "A value measure for economic property rights and benefit distribution system, which is restricted by legal property rights system." The fiscal and taxation systems and the civil and commercial law system form the basic restraints of the accounting system, and under which the accounting measures the economic property value and calculates the result of property operation, and records the process of property moving, and at last, reports to all interest-related parties. Making the accounting value equate to real economy value and making the accounting profit equate to real economy profit are the impetus for accounting technology improvement. From this aspect, technological progress of the accounting is the result of the accumulation of human knowledge about accounting. But the development of accounting is also reactive, accounting must adapt to a certain period of economic conditions and property rights system, and the property rights system determines the matter and the value preference of the accounting. So the accounting has been stamped deeply by the property system. When we compare and research the different accounting systems we should pay attention to the property rights arrangement related to them. And at the same time, the accounting is non-neutral and has important economic consequence, it can influence the decision-making of the interest-related parties and also influence the value of the firm, so when we study the reform of the property rights we should also pay attention to the accounting system related. The relationship between property rights and accounting in an enterprise can be summarized that the property rights system determines the accounting model, whereas the accounting model influences the operation and efficiency of the property rights system in the enterprise.In transition economy, the reform of property right system is always a key question of the reform of Chinese state-owned enterprises. Under traditional central planned economy, there are three vital defects in the property rights arrangement of the state-owned enterprises. Firstly, the government badly infringes the rights of the enterprises. Secondly, the enterprises badly infringe the rights of the managers and laborers. Thirdly, the horizontal relationships among enterprises are badly distorted by the government. The core topic of the reform of the state-owned enterprises is the adjustment the relations between the government and firms. We had carried out a series of reforms, such as decentralization and profit sharing to adjust the interest relationship between the government and enterprises, changing the operation system and establishment of a modern enterprise system, thus bureaucratic powers had drawn back from the enterprises, and at last, the government has become a pure equity investor and public goods provider. The state-owned enterprises gain the independent corporation property rights and independent financial dominant position. At the same time, the contractual relationships between the firms and labors, banks and others firms have been set up, the enterprises have been a real nexus of a set of contracts. The firm's accounting model has also been changed to adapt and support the reform of enterprises, the basic structure of accounting practice, the model of accounting rule-making, the aim and the operation mechanism of accounting are all changed greatly.Accounting measures and records the property by the form of vale, so the property which can't be represented by value form can't entry accounting system, even though it could entry the accounting practice it can't be measured accurately and protected strictly. Because of the influence of planned economy, state-owned property's operation mainly by material form, planned price could not reflect the real value of the property. These caused the accounting value of the property deviate form its real economic value greatly, the protection function for state-owned property of accounting system was weakened. Thus the optimization of the state-owned property is to realize value-based operation and on the basis of this to realize capitalization. As for the accounting model, to optimize it we should carry out a serious of reformation. Firstly, accounting model must adapt to the legal property rights system, the aim of it should protect all the interest-related parties equally. Secondly, the operation of accounting must be more strictly, the social and professional system of accounting and auditing should be improved greatly. Thirdly, we should deal with world economy integration positively, and facing international convergence of accounting standard we should be deliberate and careful enough.