In the Editorial, Bram Faber discusses a set of country indices and international benchmarks, which can prove useful in Governmental Accounting Research, by providing significant possibilities for analysis.

On page 2, Jan van Helden and Christoph Reichard report on an ongoing research project, which moves from the observation that the introduction of accrual-based reporting does not always imply a similar move in budgeting. This mismatch is not the obvious choice, but it may have some merits, so a deeper insight is needed, they suggest.

Conferences and related calls for papers are announced on page 3. Information is given about:

• The Conference on Accounting for the Public Sector at a Time of Crisis (Queen’s University Belfast 17-18 January 2018);
• The EGPA PSG XII Spring Workshop (Rostock, Germany, May 3-4, 2018);
• The Workshop on How do local governments cope with austerity, shocks and crises? A global perspective on governmental accountability and financial resilience (Newcastle University London, 22 November 2017).

The same page 3 presents a call for papers for a special issue in Accounting in Europe, on the theme The challenging task of developing European Public Sector Accounting Standards. The guest editors are Josette Caruana, Eugenio Caperchione and Susana Jorge (deadline for full papers March 31, 2018).

Finally, page 4 provides a first information and the call for papers for the 14th CIGAR workshop (Zagreb, Croatia, July 5-6, 2018), on the topic Accounting for Budgeting and Fiscal Responsibility. Abstracts for the workshop are due March 1, 2018; full papers are expected by June 10, 2018.

Newsletter October 2017