The paper presents the status of financial accounting information in the operation of companies and economy at large, bringing arguments for the growing role and importance – from financial reporting perspective – of information in the economy.

I started therefore from the role of accounting information in the coordinating mechanisms of the economy. Since the engine of the economy is business, those entities that participate in this “social game” need the most useful financial information. Thus, firms that seek for financial resources apply for equity and/or credit financing from capital markets and/or banks. In order to gather the resources, they must prove efficient stewardship of funds. And this is the moment when divergence in interests comes into force. It is the agency theory that describes this conflict and informational asymmetry between stakeholders. The importance of the question resides on the one hand in adverse selection, which can eventually break down the whole system, and, on the other, in globalization, a very actual phenomenon, which adds new dimensions to this conflict.

Managing this disagreement and its (economic) consequences is termed generically corporate governance, as it has its objective the smooth functioning of the businesses. This conflict of interests, and implicitly the costs of agency, can be reduced by making parties interested in the company (as against their own interests) by performance contracts, share based payments, dividends and by appropriate communication of financial information to reduce informational asymmetry. Accounting, thorough its financial reporting component, produces fundamental effects in this latter field.

At the end of the paper I reviewed the effects of these phenomena on the current Romanian economy, financial reporting and Romanian accounting profession, drawing attention on the increasing need for responsibility of accounting professional for higher quality financial reporting and true reform from authorities.