Relationship-Specific Investments and the Transfer Pricing Paradox

The revised Treasury Regulations interpreting Internal Revenue Code Section 482 allow the use of profit-based transfer pricing methods, as well as the older methods based on prices from comparable transactions between independent parties. This paper compares the effects of price-based and profit-based transfer pricing methods on the allocation of taxable income in a model in which organization structure affects the level of relationship-specific investments made by vertically integrated groups and comparable independent firms. Analysis of the model shows that the price-based methods systematically allocates more taxable income to foreign subsidiaries and less to domestic parents than does the profit-based method.     

并购对价与融资方式选择:控制权转移与风险承担——基于吉利并购沃尔沃的案例分析

并购对价和融资方式是实现公司控制权转移的支付手段和资金保证,不同的对价和融资方式反映了不同的控制权转移风险。本文以吉利并购沃尔沃为主线,分析并购对价方式和融资方式的影响因素及其对并购整合的影响。本文研究的启示是,相对现金对价,股票对价和混合对价可使并购双方共同分担海外并购风险。在外部融资选择中,除银行贷款、债券或股票融资外,利用海外并购项目的号召力,引进政府资源,实现以项目换资金,对于规避并购融资风险具有重要意义。     

Remote operation in environmentally sensitive areas: development of early warning indicators

Exploration and production of oil and gas in certain sensitive areas such as the Barents Sea and Lofoten is controversial and further expansion depends on the ability to avoid harmful spills. One way of improving the ability to avoid such spills is to use early warning indicators. The objective of the work presented in this paper is to describe and compare strengths and weaknesses of different approaches for the development of early warning indicators. The approaches that have been compared are: safety performance-based methods; risk-based methods; incident-based methods; and resilience-based methods. There are pros and cons with all methods. All methods are very favorable with respect to some characteristics and at the same time very unfavorable to some other characteristics. They are also different in terms of scope and depth of analysis. This suggests that we should be flexible with respect to the choice of methods, and preferably use more than one method. Thus, the main conclusion is that it is favorable to have the possibility to use several different methods for the establishment of early warning indicators.     

Barriers and levers to future exploration in practice experiences in policy-making

In this paper the first findings of a retrospective scan of the use of future exploration methods in strategic policy-making processes in the public domain in the Netherlands and Belgium will be addressed. The barriers and leverage points as experienced by the policy-makers involved will be assessed from their perspective as end-users who have applied foresight methods in their policy-making activities. By means of four case studies, the success factors and barriers that policy-makers encounter as they apply future exploration methods will be elaborated on. Attention will be paid to the different motives and intentions employed when opting for future exploration methods. The case studies are based on policy document analyses and in-depth interviews with users in the policy domain, all conducted in view of building empirical evidence.     

Uncertainty in Value-at-risk Estimates under Parametric and Non-parametric Modeling

This study evaluates a set of parametric and non-parametric value-at-risk (VaR) models that quantify the uncertainty in VaR estimates in form of a VaR distribution. We propose a new VaR approach based on Bayesian statistics in a GARCH volatility modeling environment. This Bayesian approach is compared with other parametric VaR methods (quasi-maximum likelihood and bootstrap resampling on the basis of GARCH models) as well as with non-parametric historical simulation approaches (classical and volatility adjusted). All these methods are evaluated based on the frequency of failures and the uncertainty in VaR estimates.Within the parametric methods, the Bayesian approach is better able to produce adequate VaR estimates, and results mostly in a smaller VaR variability. The non-parametric methods imply more uncertain 99%-VaR estimates, but show good performance with respect to 95%-VaRs.     

利益制度缺陷对风险导向审计影响的研究

目前倡导的风险导向审计,是针对日益复杂的经济业务开发的,希望能通过新的技术方法来提高发现欺诈的概率。但是,应该注意到,许多审计失败并非纯粹的技术方面的原因。技术方法的设计可以很完善,技术方法的实施却离不开相关利益制度的制约。本文认为风险导向审计的核心是风险评估,影响评估结果的关键因素是审计主体的风险偏好;而利益制度的缺陷则是导致审计主体非理性偏好的诱因,从而影响了风险导向审计的有效实施。     

Choice of translation methods in financial disclosure: a test of compliance with environmental hypotheses

Despite successive professional pronouncements providing managers with scope to choose between two translation methods, the proportion of firms in Australia using the current method as compared to the temporal method has remained relatively constant over time. Here, use is made of environmental contingency variables to evaluate and explain the consistency of management's adoption of translation methods for foreign financial statements. Tests of the affects of significant operating environmental conditions as on-going constraints on management's decisions and actions do not support hypotheses that choice is usually opportunistic, conservative, deceptive or unnecessarily short-run, given management's risk planning process as a whole. On the basis of the statistical evidence presented, the adoption of particular translation methods can apparently reflect a parent company's broad on-going investment and operating strategies for the organisation as a whole.     

《管理沟通》课程多元化教学方法应用与教学效果提升

管理沟通是一门理论和实践并重的技能型课程,课程教学的重点在于使学生了解职场沟通规律和方法,掌握沟通的技巧,培养职业素质,从而提升个人沟通的能力.本科阶段开设该课程采用多元化教学方法的研究和实践尚处于起步阶段.本文通过采用多元化教学方法,利用理论和实践巧妙结合,多种教学方法交替运用,使学生不仅掌握其理论,而且又能在实践中灵活运用,以此调动学生学习和参与课程的积极性,从而提升教学效果.     

A positive analysis of corporate capital budgeting practices

Although the academic literature has long argued that discounted cash flow methods are superior to other capital budgeting rules, these methods have only fairly recently come into widespread use. This article points out that there are both costs and benefits to using discounting rules such as net present value. Therefore, they may often not work better in practice than nondiscounting methods. Empirically, the use of discounting methods is positively correlated with market interest rates and the dissemination of information about these tools and negatively correlated with the degree of uncertainty in the economy, which is consistent with our hypotheses.     

Do Charitable Solicitations Matter? A Comparative Analysis of Fundraising Methods*

The existing literature either treats fundraising as an aggregate variable by ignoring the existence of several different fundraising methods through which charitable contributions are generated or focuses on the effectiveness of a particular fundraising method without making any comparison with alternative methods. Using biennial household surveys of charitable giving in the United States conducted from 1988 to 1999, which contain detailed questions on several fundraising methods, I first document that people are more responsive to certain fundraising methods. Next, I investigate the factors associated with donors' responsiveness to alternative fundraising techniques. The results show that several observable characteristics of charitable donors are associated with some people being more responsive to particular fundraising techniques than others are.     

CORPORATE DIVIDEND POLICY DETERMINANTS: INTELLIGENT VERSUS A TRADITIONAL APPROACH

Dividend is the return that an investor receives when purchasing a company's shares. The decision to pay these dividends to shareholders concerns several other groups of people, such as financial managers, consulting firms, individual and institutional investors, government and monitoring authorities, and creditors, just to name a few. The prediction and modelling of this decision has received a significant amount of attention in the corporate finance literature. However, the methods used to study the aforementioned question are limited to the logistic regression method without any implementation of the advanced and expert methods of data mining. These methods have proven their superiority in other business‐related fields, such as marketing, production, accounting and auditing. In finance, bankruptcy prediction has the vast majority among data‐mining implementations, but to the best of the authors’ knowledge such an implementation does not exist in dividend payment prediction. This paper satisfies this gap in the literature and provides answers that help to understand the so‐called ‘dividend puzzle’. Specifically, this paper provides evidence supporting the hypothesis that data‐mining methods perform better in accuracy measures against the traditional methods used. The prediction of dividend policy determinants provides valuable benefits to all related parties, as they can manage, invest, consult and monitor the dividend policy in a more effective way. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Voluntary Carbon Reporting Prediction: A Machine Learning Approach

In this paper we address the impact of the introduction of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme on corporate carbon reporting, and subsequently identify factors that influence the level of voluntary carbon reporting. A review of the literature demonstrates a large number of potential factors have been previously deployed to explain voluntary reporting practices; however, the analytical and empirical methods widely used in the literature have limiting statistical assumptions and confine analysis to a small number of explanatory factors. To address this limitation in prior research we apply advanced machine learning methods, such as gradient boosting machines and random forests, to identify predictive variables through analytical means. We compare the performance of machine learning methods with traditional methods such as logistic regression. We find that machine learning methods significantly outperform logistic regression and provide fundamentally different interpretations of the role and influence of different predictive variables on voluntary carbon reporting. While most variables were not statistically significant in the logit results, a number of key proxies for financial performance, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility have out-of-sample predictive power of the level of voluntary carbon reporting in the machine learning analysis.     

优化教学方法以提高《财政学》课程教学效果

财政学作为经济管理类学科的主干课程,在实际的教学过程中传统的教学方法不能适应大学生培养目标,本文从优化教学方法的角度探讨提高教学效果,从而提高学生的认知能力,培养学生的逻辑思维能力。     

萨缪尔森经济学方法论研究与启示

保罗·萨缪尔森作为当代西方经济学的集大成者,十分重视经济学方法论的研究。在经济哲学上,萨缪尔森积极倡导折衷主义,并经历了从操作主义到描述主义的转化过程。在分析工具和方法上,萨缪尔森以数学为主要分析工具,以一般均衡分析、极大化原则以及动态稳定和对应原理为具体分析方法,提高了西方经济理论的分析水平和规范化程度。     

Polynomial Approximation to Option Prices under Regime Switching

In this article we obtain the option pricing results using a polynomial approximation. A continuous-time Markov chain–governed volatility and return underlie the stock price generating process. We give European and lookback option prices under various conditions as well as discuss the precision and efficiency of our approach compared to other methods. The approximation methods are applicable for arbitrary regime settings and prove to be fast and accurate with multiple regimes.     

普通高校实行网球俱乐部制的可行性研究

网球教学在全国各高校已经全面展开,为了更好地贯彻实施《全国普通高校体育俱乐部教学指导纲要》,推动高校网球俱乐部教学模式的发展,通过问卷调查、文献资料等方法对高校网球俱乐部教学模式进行研究,提出建立网球俱乐部模式的理论依据和方法,使网球俱乐部制逐渐成为课堂教学的延伸与发展,为丰富高校体育现代化的内容和寻求改革创新教学模式提供借鉴。     

Revenue Recognition in the Construction Industry: An Experimental Study

There have been suggestions that loan officers do not consider there is a problem in the availability of alternative revenue recognition methods, provided that sufficient disclosure of recognition procedures is made to enable adjustment of financial statements. On the other hand, the accounting literature on'functional fixity' suggests such adjustments are not made. The functional fixity literature has relied exclusively on testing for an accounting method effect on user predictions and decisions. As a result, the evidence can be interpreted as users being fixated on earnings and ignoring information about accounting methods or alternatively they may have given attention to that information and attempted a transformation although the extent of the adjustment was'inadequate'. This paper suggests that the previous evidence on functional fixity is inconclusive about lenders' suggestions that they adjust financial statements and that different actions may be required by lending institutions depending on which interpretation of the functional fixity literature is made. This study uses the joint methodologies of analysis of variance and protocol analysis to focus on both whether adjustments are made as well as whether alternative methods of recognizing profit from longterm contracts affect the judgements of experienced lenders. The results show that the majority of subjects did not attempt to adjust for alternative methods of recognizing revenues.     

Focus group methods: Using interactive and nominal groups to explore emerging technology-driven phenomena in accounting and information systems

This paper puts forth arguments for why focus group methods should be used more frequently in accounting and information technology research in order to address emerging technology-driven phenomena in accounting. In this overview of focus group methods and their application to studying accounting and information technology phenomena, we focus on what alternative types of focus group methods may be applied, when such methods are applicable, and what methodological challenges the researcher must address. In examining the methodological challenges that face researchers when using these methods, we demonstrate how these challenges have been addressed in our own research as a way of exemplifying the challenges researchers may face and what compensating strategies researchers might use. Our objective is to highlight when focus groups may be the best method for accounting information systems researchers and demonstrate how they can be used when they are applicable.     

试论现代财务学的学科性质、分析框架和研究方法

本文认为,从理论渊源和学科体系上看,财务学应该属于经济学;财务学的分析框架由研究基点、假设条件、理论依据、理论模型、经验实证和分析工具等要素或步骤构成;鉴于财务学既是一门社会科学又是一门经验科学,因此在财务学研究中要综合地运用各种研究方法,而不能片面地强调实证分析方法。     

Framework foresight: Exploring futures the Houston way

Over the last several years, the University of Houston developed and codified a method for teaching students how to carry out foresight projects. This development represented a philosophical shift from a neutral presentation of methods without particular advocacy for one or the other. The challenge that this neutral approach presented is that each method is somewhat different and especially for those new to foresight, it became challenging to find common ground, distinguish them, or to know when to use one or the other. Our experience is that our initial wariness of promoting a standard method and thus a “one-right-way” of doing foresight proved unfounded. Not only does it not detract from the teaching of other methods, in fact it has made it easier. Framework Foresight was deliberately built to accommodate and incorporate other methods and approaches. It provides a basis of comparison of how various practitioners and methods do the work, enabling them to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each. Framework Foresight thus could be viewed as a meta-method in that it is a modular approach that accommodates a substitution of, or supplementation from, other methods or techniques at various steps. As students became practitioners and used the method in their practice, they have provided useful feedback and have generally reported back good results. Thus, Framework Foresight is offered to the foresight community as a method for carrying out foresight projects