The rise of accounting controls in British capitalist enterprises

This paper represents an attempt to understand the historical factors which have led to the comparative pre-eminence of accountants in British management hierarchies and the emphasis on financial modes of control within British companies. It is argued firstly that the nature of British capital markets exaggerated the significance of the audit, thus establishing a power-base for the profession from which it was able to sponsor its own preferred modes of internal control and so strengthen its position in management structures. Secondly, the mode of wartime state intervention in this country favoured “external” accounting controls as a means of avoiding more directive forms of industrial mobilisation, in line with the policy of maintaining the operation of laisser-faire capitalism as far as possible. Thirdly the profession has played some part in the successive waves of merger which have occured in British industry and has proposed on the basis of offering financial solutions to the control problems of the resulting large organisations.     

Accounting's Motive Power - the Vision and Reality for Management Accounting on the Nationalised Railways to 1959

A financial crisis had engulfed the UK's nationalised railways by 1960. This, and the subsequent retrenchment identified with Dr Beeching, has obscured determined and coherent earlier attempts to install modern methods of management accounting on the nationalised railways in the 1940s and 1950s. This paper sets out the attempted development of these techniques which were sponsored by the highest level of railway management and the defeat of these attempts in practice by the railways' organisational structure and culture. The conclusion is reached that, to be effective, new administrative techniques have to operate in compatible organisational and power structures.     

Scientific management and the pursuit of control in Britain to c.1960

The intellectual content and intentions of scientific management theories, aimed at industrial performance and harmony, were largely absent from British management practice for a great part of the last century. The limited interpretation of scientific management in Britain was characterised by a focus on control, at the heart of which was the use of piecework. Criticisms of piecework surfaced notably in the 1960s, linked to criticisms of scientific management as a whole. This article argues that any failure of piecework was not necessarily a failure of scientific management, given the latter's diluted role in twentieth century British management practice.     

Adaptation and change in the Australian life insurance industry: an historical perspective

In the wake of the deregulation of the financial sector in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s the life insurance industry has undergone a period of rapid change and reorganisation. Part of this adjustment has been the move towards the integration of financial service provision and the rise of bancassurance. This paper investigates the strategies adopted by Australian life insurers as they moved into the increasingly competitive environment triggered by the lifting of government restrictions on banking practices. It compares the approach of life insurers with that adopted in an earlier period of expansion and change. During the 1950s and 1960s an influx of foreign owned insurance companies into the Australian market precipitated the diversification of domestic life insurers into other insurance markets. The catalyst for change in both cases was the change in information costs brought about by the change in the competitive environment. The experience of the Australian life insurance market would suggest that there is a link between changing information costs and changing organisational structures. However this link is circumscribed by the institutional environment.     

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BASE YEAR IN DEVELOPING FAILURE PREDICTION MODELS

Most failure prediction models developed over the past fifteen years have been based on firms' financial characteristics one year before they collapsed. This article reports the results of a study employing multiple discriminant analysis on a sample of fifty-three British companies which failed over the period 1960–1971. Models were developed on various financial ratios and an industry indicator for each of the five years, prior to failure, and the results in fact show that the model developed from data five years before failure performed at least as well as that derived one year prior to bankruptcy.     

The development of management accounting in UK clearing banks, 1920-70

There is a perception that, in the British banks which dominated the industry for much of the twentieth century, management accounting was limited in scope and contributed to a general inefficiency in these institutions. Various official reports published from the 1960s until very recently have reinforced this view. However, some authors have argued that the banks were more sophisticated in their management than such criticisms would imply. This paper investigates the role, development and limitations of management accounting in the sector, drawing on archival evidence and relating this to the more general development of management accounting. In advancing our understanding, evidence is found to support both views.     

Financial control, managerial control and accountability: evidence from the British Cotton Industry, 1700–2000

The paper seeks to identify the underlying and long run historical determinants of accounting practices. These practices include the nature and relative importance of management and financial accounting techniques, together with the mediating roles of corporate finance and especially financial markets. To explain historical variation in the application of these techniques the paper introduces an analytical model. The model is based on the principles of historical materialism and hence comprises objective and subjective elements. Definitional categories are borrowed from Marx’s analysis of the workings of capitalism, and extended to include contexts where there is extensive socialization of capital, as manifested by the pooling of investments in liquid financial markets. To examine the detailed implications for accounting change, the model is then applied to a longitudinal case study of the British cotton textile industry. The paper shows that techniques of financial and managerial control and mechanisms of accountability can be explained by the dynamic interaction of capital centralization and capital socialization.     

The Influence of the Accountant on British Business Performance From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present Day

Britain has more professionally qualified accountants per capita than any of her leading economic rivals and they play a major role as advisers to British companies and take a disproportionate share of the jobs in top management. Unfortunately for the accountants, business historians, other academics, commentators and even contemporary politicians have almost universally noted this to be a bad thing. This article discusses whether this reputation is justified by assessing the past performance of professional accountants as business advisers and managers. Stereotypical criticisms of accountants in terms of excessive caution, their support for the holding company form, or seeing problems in narrow financial terms are found to be unjustified. The promotion of accountants to the top jobs can be seen as rational profit-maximizing behaviour by British companies and a recent survey has demonstrated the performance of accountants in top management in recent years to be superior to other professions such as engineers.     

金融衍生产品对上市公司风险管理影响实证研究

论文选取有色金属矿产行业以及能源交通运输行业229家上市公司作为样本，以上市公司是否使用衍生产品为解释变量，同时引用一系列控制变量，通过实证分析上市公司使用衍生产品是否会有效降低公司风险。实证过程涉及参数检验、非参数检验、相关性分析和回归分析，实证结果显示我国上市公司使用衍生产品会降低公司风险，这与西方主流的财务管理理论相一致而与我国学者以前的研究相反，由此推测我国上市公司运用衍生产品的能力逐渐娴熟。     

Volatility in Wheat Spot and Futures Markets, 1950–1993: Government Farm Programs,Seasonality, and Causality

We explore how wheat spot and futures market volatility has been impacted by government farm programs during the 1950–1993 period. We find that changing volatility in both markets is highly associated with changing farm programs. The mandatory allotment programs of the 1950s and early 1960s (1/3/50–4/10/64) were associated with low volatility, while the voluntary programs initiated in the mid 1960s seem to have induced high volatility (4/11/64–12/22/85). Both market-driven loan rates and conservation reserve programs appear to have helped volatility revert to lower levels since the mid 1980s (12/23/85–12/30/93). We also examine seasonality and causality in conjunction with the farm programs.     

MARKET ANTICIPATION OF CORPORATE FAILURE IN THE UK

In practice it seems that the identification of impending failure is a much more gradual process than appears to be implied by discriminant and similar models. This paper, after examining the methodological problems associated with such research and reviewing previous work in this area, reports the behaviour of share price relatives of 20 British companies which failed between 1960 and 1971. It appears that on average analysts began to perceive a fum's financial difficulties some five years prior to bankruptcy, which would seem to support the view that the market refers to a broad data set in assessing a company's solvency position.     

THE EMERGENCE OF DISCOUNTED CASH FLOW ANALYSIS IN THE TYNESIDE COAL INDUSTRY c.1700–1820

The paper examines the origins of discounted cash flow analysis (DCF) in the Tyneside coal industry and explains its sudden adoption around 1801. It finds that a complex series of circumstances were involved, but that in terms of the catalysts, the prime motivation was economic. DCF was a specific wealth-maximization response to the economic conditions of the day. Second, there is the question of the utility of accounting in the British Industrial Revolution which has been variously denigrated or rehabilitated by researchers. The adoption of DCF is a clear case of accounting and engineering technologies combining to facilitate the exploitation of deep coal reserves, where accounting acted as a determinant of industrial expansion. Finally, the paper finds that the DCF valuation method of the early viewers (mining engineers/managers) was still being applied in the British coal industry in the modern era, suggesting that for one major industry at least, the absorption of DCF within the domain of modern accounting practice was primarily a question of tradition and not just an educational innovation of the 1960s.     

中国机动车强制保险的目标定位与模式选择

我国现行机动车强制保险制度值得研究的问题很多,但最为核心的、最为基础的问题是目标定位不清、冲突及模式选择混乱,这是目前机动车强制保险制度的问题之源。我国的机动车强制保险制度应当将“为受害人人身损害提供快速、基本保障”确定为唯一的立法宗旨,并严格按照强制责任保险原理构造。《道路交通安全法》第76条和《机动车交通事故责任强...     

我国房地产业蕴含的金融风险及相关政策调整

本文对当前我国房地产业发展的总体情况和存在的突出矛盾进行了考察，并在此基础上，总结了上个世纪80年代以来发生的典型房地产泡沫危机，分析了房地产泡沫危机和金融危机的关系，以及目前我国房地产业潜在的风险．提出了促进我国房地产业健康发展的政策建议．自去年开始，我国政府针对房地产市场过热的问题实行了从紧的宏观调控措施．这次宏观调控的效果显现时间与美国由次贷问题引发的金融危机相重合。在国内经济政策调整和国际经济环境恶化这样一个大背景下．正确判断我国房地产市场发展情况，分析房地产市场与金融运行之间的相互影响，对于稳步实施房地产业政策调整。防范房地产泡沫与金融风险，促进房地产业、金融和经济的健康发展具有重要意义。     

为金融企业打造诺亚方舟的灾备系统建设

随着金融行业风险管理意识的不断提升，灾难备份也从最初的IT层面上升到企业的业务连续性管理。信息技术的日新月异，给金融行业的灾难备份带来了机遇和挑战。该文介绍了当前我国灾难备份的政策框架与金融企业灾备建设的现状，并展望了金融企业灾备技术革新和灾备建设的发展趋势。     

Commercial bank asset portfolio behavior in the United States: Evidence of a change in structure

The development of a short-term borrowing option by a financial industry should lower the liquid-asset share of its portfolio and increase the shares invested in higher-earning, less-liquid, alternative investments. A marked shift in commercial-bank portfolio shares in this direction did, in fact, occur between 1960 and 1970. The development of a borrowing option should also increase the willingness of banks to satisfy temporary extraordinary demands for funds by their customers. Comparison of equation estimates on data from the 1960s and the 1970s is strongly supportive of the increased-willingness hypothesis regarding loans to both businesses and households.     

Accounting Regulation and Management Discretion—A Case Note

This article explores the manipulation of published financial reports in order to counter the potentially unfavourable impact of newly introduced regulation. In this case the reported capital ratio of a major British building society was enhanced using a sale and leaseback transaction with a related party and a change in depreciation policy, methods which reflected limited alternatives. Analysis of the case is set in the context of the sector and addresses the questions of whether these manipulations were within then‐prevailing generally accepted accounting principles and why, despite disclosure in the society's financial statements, they failed to attract public comment or concern, regulatory action or an audit qualification. In examining a major British mutual financial organization we depart from traditional analyses of managerial discretion in accounting choices in British companies.     

Banks and the emergence of Hong Kong as an international financial center

Hong Kong is generally recognized as one of the premier international financial centers (IFCs) in the world. Its position has owed much to the opening of opportunity in the People's Republic of China since 1978, as well as the territory's long-standing reputation for transparency and efficiency in the provision of financial services. Less commonly recognized are the origins of Hong Kong's expertise in international banking and the prominent position that it commanded in the first few decades after the Second World War. This article seeks to clarify the development of Hong Kong as an international banking center in the first years after the War. The unique combination of laissez-faire government policy and a vibrant traditional local banking system catapulted Hong Kong to regional and global importance in the 1950s and 1960s and formed the basis for its later prominence as an IFC.     

The usefulness of inaccurate models: Towards an understanding of the emergence of financial risk management

Is the growth of modern financial risk management a result of the accuracy and reliability of risk models? This paper argues that the remarkable success of today’s financial risk management methods should be attributed primarily to their communicative and organizational usefulness and less to the accuracy of the results they produced. This paper traces the intertwined historical paths of financial risk management and financial derivatives markets. Spanning from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, the paper analyses the social, political and organizational factors that underpinned the exponential success of one of today’s leading risk management methodologies, the applications based on the Black–Scholes–Merton options pricing model. Using primary documents and interviews, the paper shows how financial risk management became part of central market practices and gained reputation among the different organisational market participants (trading firms, the options clearinghouse and the securities regulator). Ultimately, the events in the aftermath of the market crash of October 1987 showed that the practical usefulness of financial risk management methods overshadowed the fact that when financial risk management was critically needed the risk model was inaccurate.     

再论金融学科建设与金融人才培养

金融学科的发展依托于金融业发展。金融学科的建设在当前需要关注金融学科究竟属于经济学还是属于管理学、金融学科能否成为一级学科,以及当代国内外金融学科的新发展。金融学科建设既要结合我国实际又要立足人才培养,学科建设中“拿来主义”不是最佳的选择。金融人才培养要分层次,要考察和判断社会有些什么样的金融机构。学科建设与人才培养均要建立在金融研究深化的基础之上。