# how transferable is accounting education between countries?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-transferable-is-accounting-education-between-countries/528484>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 10, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-transferable-is-accounting-education-between-countries/528484 "2010-02-10T22:18:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-transferable-is-accounting-education-between-countries/528484/1 "2010-02-10T22:18:04Z")

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let’s say it costs X to study accounting in America, Y to study it in Germany and Z in a place like Philippines. So how different would the resulting education be? Would a German or Philippines trained accountant need to do lots of self-study to be able to work competently in an American environment? Or are things very similar in this field the world over?

As a refinement of the above question, are there distinct groups of nations such that accounting training and experience were highly transferable within the group but not between them? E.g. do the Arab countries, former Soviet Union or let’s say Latin America have accounting practices fundamentally distinct from the Western ones? How about the Anglosphere vs Continental Europe - is there a big difference there?

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**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-transferable-is-accounting-education-between-countries/528484/2 "2010-02-11T00:08:49Z")

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oops, sounds like I posted this to the wrong forum. Seems more of a GQ type thing. Sorry.

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**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-transferable-is-accounting-education-between-countries/528484/3 "2010-02-11T16:00:45Z")

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There is a movement to come up with an international GAAP standard. I don’t think its happened yet.

But the fundamentals are the same…the rules are just different. And the rules are changing all the time anyway.

A lot of simple accounting functions in the U.S. are being off shored.