Abstract

Professional accountants in public practice (i.e. auditors) and both public and private accounting standard setters and regulators including the IASB (see IFRS Foundation, 2010: par. 2), claim to be serving the public interest. While some are sceptical about how seriously such claims should be taken, there is a growing literature that analyses what is implied by ‘the public interest’ and what implications different interpretations of the public interest might have for accounting, auditing, reporting and regulation. This chapter aims to provide an analysis of the growing literature on the subject.