Public Net Worth

PART 1. PURPOSE AND PROLOGUE.- Chapter 1. Owning and Owing.- Chapter 2. From Warfare to Welfare in Three Generations.- PART 2. ACCOUNTING FOR GOVERNMENT.-  Chapter 3. Why Government Accounting Matters.- Chapter 4. What Does the Government Balance Sheet Look Like?.-  Chapter 5. Why Accrual Accounting Matters.- Chapter 6. Accrual Accounting - How it Works in Practice.- Chapter 7. Central Banks and the Public Sector Balance Sheet.- Chapter 8. Looking to the Future: The Comprehensive Balance Sheet.- Chapter 9. Comparison of Public Sector Balance Sheets.- Chapter 10. Comparison of Comprehensive Balance Sheets.- Chapter 11. Review of Fiscal Rules.- PART 3. MANAGING PUBLIC COMMERCIAL ASSETS AND LIABILITIES.- Chapter 12.  Finding, Understanding and Valuing Public Commercial Assets.- Chapter 13. The Asset Map: A Shortcut to Understanding Property Holdings Better.- Chapter 14. Institutionalising Asset Management.- Chapter 15. What Should Governments Do with Public Commercial Assets?.- Chapter 16. Managing Assets Better: The Role of Public Wealth Funds.- Chapter 17. Pensions and Other Liabilities: The Benefits of Disclosure and Management.- PART 4. PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.-  Chapter 18. Balance Sheets, Culture and National Achievement in Europe 1560 - 1834.- Chapter 19.   How Accounting Can Save Democracy.- Chapter 20. Implementing Change.

Ian Ball

Ian is an Adjunct Professor at the Wellington School of Business and Government at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He served as the Director of Financial Management Policy and Central Financial Controller at the New Zealand Treasury. He is credited with being the principal architect of the New Zealand Government's financial management reform process, leading to the passage of the Public Finance Act 1989. This made New Zealand the first government to introduce modern accrual accounting and integrate that with the budget and appropriation processes. He also initiated and lead the development of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) while Chair of the International Federation of Accountant's Public Sector Committee.


Willem BuiterCurrently an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the Global Chief Economist at Citigroup, Chief Economist at the EBRD and an original member ofthe Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. He was the Juan T. Trippe Professor of International Economics at Yale University. He held academic appointments at the London School of Economics, Cambridge University, the University of Bristol, and Princeton University. He is the author of 78 refereed articles in professional journals and seven books.


John Crompton



John began his career as a civil servant in HM Treasury in the mid-1980s before joining Morgan Stanley, where he worked as an investment banker in London, New York, and Hong Kong. In 2005 - 07 he was seconded back to HMT as its Senior Corporate Finance Advisor, and from 2008 - 2010 was Head of Market Investments at UKFI, responsible for the government's investments in Lloyds Banking Group and RBS (now NatWest). More recently, he worked for HSBC for several years and is now a non-executive director, adviser and fintech