Internal Versus External Capital Markets in the Insurance Industry: The Role of Reinsurance

This study compares internal and external sources of capital in the insurance industry by analyzing reinsurance activity between affiliated and unaffiliated insurers. Tests are performed using data from a large sample of property-liability insurers that are affiliated with at least one other property-liability insurer. Results indicate that while demands for internal and external reinsurance have some factors in common, there are cost-based differences in internal and external capital, as well as structural differences in the use of internal and external reinsurance. Results are consistent with previous theories related to internal versus external capital markets.     

Planning in the Dark: Why Major Engineering Projects Fail to Achieve Key Goals

The arguments, analysis and observations in this paper are based on 10 years of research with partners in the European and US aerospace and defence industries. During this period, the authors were part of a team of researchers who were seeking to develop a new methodology and tool set for project management, particularly aimed at large aerospace projects. The research was motivated by the seemingly ubiquitous reality of project failure, with large engineering projects apparently always late and over budget. Here the authors focus on aerospace and defence, but the problems are generic across all branches of engineering. In their view, aerospace and defence have more excuses than most, because not only are the projects huge, but also they are globally distributed and highly complex. As work progressed, a fundamental conundrum emerged. Through discussions with project managers and assessment of the teams that were undertaking the projects, it became obvious that they were well educated, intelligent, highly motivated and very capable people. So why were so many projects going wrong? And it was not just aerospace and defence, as projects were failing in many different sectors and in numerous geographic locations. Obviously the problems were not to do with incompetence, as they were clearly so generic. As a result, the authors focused their analysis on factors inherent in the way all major projects are undertaken. The ultimate finding has been that the very technology available for managing projects today is inadequate. As argued within the paper, modern, complex projects cannot be planned and executed using 50-year-old project management tools. The paper tells the story of what is wrong with the current technology and how and why it needs to change. The authors are well aware that there are also cultural problems in project management, but many of these are exacerbated by the use of inadequate tools.     

Early Birds versus Just-in-Timers: The effect of procrastination on academic performance of accounting students

This study investigates the effect of procrastination on academic performance. Prior research has often relied upon self-reported measures of procrastination, which are only weakly correlated with actual procrastination. We use the start and submission of a set of online homework problems as two objective, direct measures of student procrastination and the grade on the assignments as a measure of performance. In our study, there were a number of potential benefits to submitting online assignments ‘just-in-time’. Thus, there was a direct benefit to procrastination, which students had to weigh against potential drawbacks. With a sample size larger than those previously reported in the literature, we find that for both procrastination measures, task procrastination is associated with lower task performance. To ensure that our results are not just an association between performance and student quality, we test for the association between task procrastination and task performance, while controlling for student quality. We find that even after controlling for student quality, task procrastination is associated with lower task performance.     

Dark trends: Psychology,science fiction,and the ominous consensus

Many science fiction authors predict that the world will continue moving towards an environment characterised by a combination of high population density and advanced technology. Psychologists and writers of fiction both appear to be in general agreement that such an environment will result in an information overload, intolerable time pressures, overwork for a minority with a lack of meaningful work for the majority, and the loss of privacy and autonomy. Futurists should note the agreement between artistic vision and scientific research—that human civilisation appears to be moving towards conditions that are unpleasant and deleterious.     

Comparability: An analytic examination

Comparability is often invoked as an evaluative criterion in regulatory and financial reporting controversies. This article explores the issue by first developing a formal model of comparability that is consistent with the prior information economics literature regarding normative criteria. This model is then used in a restricted setting to explore how such criteria might eventually be used to establish preference relationships.