Extractive industries accounting and economic consequences: Past, present and future

Accounting for the extractive industries has been a contested issue for decades as a result of a choice of different methods of costing available and the economic impacts of these methods on companies’ financial results. When the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) embarked on its extractive industries project in 1998, it attempted to create uniform accounting practices. An archival study of constituent responses to the IASB’s Issues Paper revealed that the economic consequences argument was relied upon again to argue for retaining choice. The IASB’s international accounting standard, IFRS 6, issued in 2004, once again permitted choice between methods, illustrating the effectiveness of the economic consequences argument in perpetuating past practice.