Municipal corporations must have separate accounting systems and must account for
the management of their resources. According to the opportunities in the regulation of
Swedish corporate accounting, municipal corporations can choose between two sets of
standards, or a mix of them: the less detailed, more prudent, conservative standards of the
Swedish Accounting Standards Board (SASB), or the standards that are harmonized with
the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and thus more costly to apply, which
are issued by the Swedish Financial Accounting Standards Council (SFASC). Stressing
the fundamental differences between the two opposing alternatives, SASB or SFASC, we
ask the question: What can explain the Swedish municipal corporations’ choices of the
accounting standards of SASB or SFASC?