Flipping the Undergraduate Economics Classroom: Using Online Videos to Enhance Teaching and Learning

The flipped classroom has been proposed as a teaching method with the potential to enhance student learning by removing much of the ‘‘transmission of knowledge’’ from the classroom and replacing this with active learning approaches that enable the assimilation of information. This article analyzes the impact of a flipped undergraduate economics course that leverages an existing suite of online lectures by Khan Academy. The study employs a quasiexperimental design to evaluate the impact of two different flipped treatments on an undergraduate microeconomics principles final exam. Student achievement is compared for students in (i) a “traditional” undergraduate course; (ii) a “complemented” (or partially flipped) classroom including traditional “mini” lectures complemented with online video lectures assigned as homework; and (iii) a flipped classroom. Results suggest that students in both of the flipped courses scored between 4 and 14 percentage points higher on set of common questions and a cumulative final exam.     

Insights into accounting choice from the adoption timing of International Financial Reporting Standards

This paper collects survey evidence on the costs and benefits of adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). It also examines the motivations for the timing of IFRS adoption. Significant differences exist between early and late adopters for three of nine benefits and for one of six cost measures. No significant differences exist in terms of firm size or the impact of IFRS on contracts. Early adopters perceive themselves as market leaders. They are more certain about the manageability of implementing IFRS and are more specific with regard to the impact of IFRS adoption. Late adoption decisions are motivated by adverse consequences and uncertainty.     

The ability of deferred tax to predict future tax

We examine the usefulness of tax allocation accounting (deferred tax) for predicting future tax paid and future tax expense. Deferred taxes increase the explanatory power (R²) of regression models where future taxes paid or future tax expense is the dependent variable. However, the mean out‐of‐sample forecast errors for tax paid (future tax expense) is 30 (45.5) percent. Deferred tax increases predictive ability on pooled data, but is inconsistent on a year‐by‐year basis. We examine three explanations for poor predictive ability: losses, tax changes and asset growth. We discuss the policy and practical implications of our findings.     

Improving value transfer through socio‐economic adjustments in a multicountry choice experiment of water conservation alternatives

This study tests the transferability of the nonmarket values of water conservation for domestic and environmental purposes across three south European countries and Australia applying a common choice experiment design. Different approaches are followed to test the transferability of the estimated values, aiming to minimise transfer errors for use in policy analysis, comparing both single‐ and multicountry transfers, with and without socio‐economic adjustments. Within Europe, significant differences are found between implicit prices for environmental water use, but not for domestic water use. In the Australian case study, alleviating restrictions on domestic water use has no significant value. Pooling the three European samples improves the transferability of the environmental flow values between Europe and Australia. Results show that a reduction in transfer error is achieved when controlling for unobserved and observed preference heterogeneity in the single‐ and multicountry transfers, providing additional support for the superiority of socio‐economic adjustment procedures in value transfer.     

Policy borrowing: lessons from European attempts to transfer training practices

Globalisation has provided an impetus to the borrowing of policies and ‘best practices’ between countries. This article looks specifically at such borrowing in the field of Continuing Vocational Training (CVT). Using case study data drawn from a wider evaluation of a European programme, the FORCE programme, it illustrates some of the barriers encountered when attempting to transfer training principles, practices and delivery systems from one country to another, focusing on structural and institutional factors rather than cultural ones. While acknowledging the importance of ‘learning’ at a broader level, the article argues that ET systems are embedded within a wider societal, institutional and cultural context that limits the success of transfer.     

Managed Trade in Non-traditional Products: Emerging Issues for Canada's Specialised Livestock Sectors

The specialised livestock industry is poised for excellent growth and development in both Saskatchewan and Canada. … Specialised livestock have the potential to meet market demands in other parts of the world as well as local opportunities for healthy and exotic foods. (Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, 2000).
… there are now 4000 deer farms in New Zealand. They are running 1.8 million animals, in a country somewhat smaller than Saskatchewan! (Haigh 2000).
There are domestic and export markets for venison and export offers the best returns. Over 80% of Australian-produced venison is now exported … They are large markets with limited Australian market penetration because of the current small size of our industry and our inability to provide the volume required (Mackay 2000).
…the behaviour of new enterprises follow a very predictable pattern. Unfortunately, despite the highly predictable nature of these issues and problems, the same mistakes are made over and over (McKinna 1999).     

Towards A Framework For The Comparative Analysis Of National Systems Of Skill Formation

This article builds on earlier attempts to develop a conceptual framework for the comparative analysis of training and skill formation systems. Following a critical review of previous approaches, the article identifies the main underlying relationships which shape national systems of skill formation. We identify four such ‘models’ of the skill formation process. These models show how such a framework can help us understand why societies have different approaches to the provision of education, training and skill formation and why there are significant differences in government policies towards training as they at tempt to respond to the challenges of globalisation.     

The impact of monitor choice on insurer loss reserves

This paper examines the association between monitoring and earnings management by property-casualty insurers. Prior literature has evaluated the impact of auditors and actuaries on insurer reserving. We extend this work by considering the nonrandom nature of monitor assignment. We model the insurer decisions regarding choice of auditor and actuary jointly using a Heckman selection model. Consistent with prior literature, we account for potential loss reserving incentives that may confound these decisions. We find that the use of internal actuaries is significantly related to higher reserve errors, but this is reduced, but not fully offset, when the internal actuary is an officer of the insurer. We find lower reserve error for auditors from a Big N firm. However, the use of an auditor and actuary from the same Big N firm is significantly related to higher reserve errors.