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OPEN ACCESS Journal of Accounting and Taxation July 2018 ISSN: 2141-6664 DOI: 10.5897/JAT www.academicjournals.org ABOUT JAT The Journal of Accounting and Taxation (JAT) is published monthly (one volume per year) by Academic Journals. Journal of Accounting and Taxation (JAT) is an open access journal that provides rapid Publication (monthly) of articles in all areas of the subject. The Journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence. Papers will be published shortly after acceptance. All articles published in JAT are peer-reviewed. Contact Us Editorial Office: [email protected] Help Desk: [email protected] Website: http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/JAT Submit manuscript online http://ms.academicjournals.me/ Editors Dr. Nikolaos G. Theriou Department of Business Administration School of Business and Economics Technological Educational Institute Kavala, Greece. Dr. George Iatridis Department of Economics University of Thessaly Ministry of Economics Volos, Greece Editorial Board Dr. Hyun-Chin Lim President, Korean Association of Political Sociology Dean, College of Social Sciences Seoul National University Seoul 151-742, Korea Dr. Jeyapalan Kasipillai School of Business Monash University Sunway, Malaysia. Dr. Arikan Tarik Saygili Izmir Ekonomi Universitesi Balcova, Turkey. Dr. Manoj Subhash Kamat Faculty, Shree Damodar College of Commerce & Economics Goa University Comba, India. Dr. Norman Bin Mohd Saleh Graduate School of Business Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Selangor, Malaysia. Dr. Zulnaidi Yaacob School of Distance Education Universiti Sains Malaysia. Dr. Salisu Abubakar Department of Accounting, Finance & Management Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Dr. Mohammad Talha Department of Accounting & MIS College of Industrial Management (AACSB Accredited) King Fahd University of Petroleum & Mineral Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Yu Chen Department of A. R. Sanchez Jr. School of Business Texas A&M International University USA. Journal of Accounting and Taxation Table of Contents: Volume 10 Number 5 July 2018 ARTICLE Modeling an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) assessment system for municipalities in Greece with public accounting of austerity 48 Panagiotis Pantelidis, Michail Pazarskis, Athanasia Karakitsiou and Vaia Dolka Vol. 10(5), pp. 48-60, July 2018 DOI: 10.5897/JAT2018.0300 Article Number: 008082D58063 ISSN 2141-6664 Copyright © 2018 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article Journal of Accounting and Taxation http://www.academicjournals.org/JAT Full Length Research Paper Modeling an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) assessment system for municipalities in Greece with public accounting of austerity Panagiotis Pantelidis1, Michail Pazarskis2*, Athanasia Karakitsiou1 and Vaia Dolka1 1Department of Business Administration, T.E.I. of Central Macedonia, Greece. 2Department of Accounting and Finance, T.E.I. of Central Macedonia, Greece. Received 14 May, 2018; Accepted 19 June, 2018 The new form of local government organization should be competent and effective in order to provide 21st century services equivalent to the citizens of every country. Its new developmental role can be fulfilled by implementing management techniques that will be conducive to local development. The use of accounting ratios from financial statements is necessary to municipalities as well as to every accounting body to depict the dynamic and static condition of each entity. The aim of the study is to propose a new modeling of an Analytic Hierarchy Process (ΑHP) assessment system for municipalities in Greece based on their public accounting data in the era of austerity, due to the recent Greek economic crisis. Several revenues ratios were analyzed, which were obtained by public accounting data, of a small sample of Greek municipalities with similar population for the years 2011-2015, which is during the period of economic crisis and after the implementation of the “Kallikratis” program in Greece. The analysis of accounting ratios shows useful findings on the efficiency of each one of the examined municipalities. The created assessment model could be applied as a guide in the analysis of financial statements with ratios of all the municipalities in Greece or elsewhere. It could be further used as an evaluation tool by the policy makers and managers in the central state authorities or the municipalities system. Key words: Public accounting, ratios, revenues, municipality, Kallikratis. INTRODUCTION The institution of local government administration in control exercised on them on behalf of the state is solely Greece dates back to 1833 according to the law of restricted to controlling the legitimacy of their actions. “Founding of Municipalities” and constitutes fundamental The New Public Management (NPM) reinforced institution for the quality of democracy. Municipalities in mergers of municipalities worldwide (Reingewertz, 2012; Greece have administrative and financial independence. Saarimaa and Tukiainen, 2015; Blesse and Baskaran, The state ensures the necessary resources in order for 2016; Hirota and Yunoue, 2017). Consequently, in 2010, municipalities to accomplish their mission while the an important administrative reform occurred in Greece *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Pantelidis et al. 49 through the “Kallikratis” program (Greek Law 3852/2010). Section presents a bibliographical overview on The existing municipalities were united in larger ones so municipality financial management and accounting as to achieve improvement of public administration in the issues, the following analyses the examined ratios that local government administration level. From the pre- will be used for data analysis, the sample of existing 910 municipalities and 124 communities, 325 municipalities and the selected methodology. new municipalities emerged from this new structure in Subsequently, there will be analysis of accounting data primary local government administration. with an AHP comparative analysis of the examined However, the reform took place in a difficult time for municipalities. Finally, the last section refers to the final Greece due to the economic crisis. In 2010, the Greek conclusions of the study. economy was in a state of budgetary unbalance, which resulted in voting austerity measures and cuts. All these have an immediate impact on local government Literature review administration too since municipalities have to fulfil their new responsibilities with reduced finance from the central The analysis of financial statements using indicators to government. Therefore, municipalities should apply interpret the performance of different municipalities effective financial accounting techniques and mostly to worldwide is one of the most widespread methods enforce collection of local public revenue. Analytic (Brusca-Alijarde, 1997; Christiaens, 1999; Cohen, 2008; Hierarchy Process (ΑHP) (Saaty, 1980) can be proven a Godard, 2010). Below is a brief reference to different powerful tool towards this direction. studies which have been conducted in relation to Local The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a multiple Government Organizations (LGO) in Greece. criteria decision-making method that is used to derive According to Cohen (2008), the double-entry system ratio scales from both discrete and continuous paired has been introduced in many organizations of the Greek comparisons (Saaty, 1987). Since its development, it has public sector since 1998 following in the footsteps of been used in numerous applications ranging from many countries in Europe and around the world. The suppliers selection (Rajesha and Malliga, 2013) and study examined the financial statements (balance-sheets customer satisfaction (Li et al., 2014) to project etc.) of 277 municipalities and they were published during evaluation (Vidal et al., 2011) and financial performance the period, 2002-2004 while five macroeconomic factors, evaluation (Shaverdia et al., 2014). Yet, the such as municipality population, real estate value, Gross implementation of the AHP for comparison of National Product, touristic growth and the fact of the municipalities based on financial ratios derived from municipality being the capital of prefecture or not, were public accounting data has not been reported. used to assess the extent of their impact on nine ratios Taking everything into consideration, the present work derived from the financial statements. The results concentrates on the study of a model of an AHP showed that financial performance through ratios was assessment system for municipalities in Greece during influenced by macroeconomic factors. the period of the economic crisis based on their public The budgets of 15 municipalities in the region of Ahaia accounting data. Several revenues ratios are analyzed for the period of 2005-2007 were examined in the study from a small sample of Greek municipalities with similar of Bellas et al. (2010). The study analyzes the following population using public accounting data financial ratios: (a) the total certified income as compared to the statements for the years 2011-2015, in the era of the total budgeted income, (b) the total collected income as economic crisis and after implementation of the compared to the total budgeted income and (c) the total “Kallikratis” program in Greece. More analytically,
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