我国现代商业的创新目标

在人类社会进入 2 1世纪和我国加入WTO之际 ,发达国家的商业发展已经形成了新的特点和趋势 ,影响着我国现代商业的发展。在借鉴发达国家商业的发展经验和我国商业新形式的发展特点基础上 ,业态创新 ,组织创新 ,投资主体与所有权创新 ,经营管理手段 ,批发和零售界定 ,代理以及物流配送中心等 ,是我国商业的创新目标。     

改善我国中小企业融资状况的若干思考

本文针对中小企业融资难的现状,从金融体系、企业和政府三方进行分析,提出解决中小企业融资难的主要出路在于发展多种形式的中小金融机构。并就如何改善中小企业融资状况提出了若干建议和对策。     

Effects of pension fund freezing on firm performance and risk

This study considers the effect of freezing defined benefit pension funds on shareholder risk and returns. The conditional models used in this study directly assess the effects of a pension fund freeze on returns and on systematic and residual risk. While pension fund freezes do not significantly affect performance or systematic risk, they do significantly reduce short‐term residual risk. Pension fund freezes therefore do not generally present significant financial advantages to shareholders. Only shareholders of firms with pension funds in crisis would benefit from significant systematic risk reductions. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Economic and social correlates of handicraft selling in Tonga

Although tourism has stimulated employment opportunities in many Pacific island nations, some scholars argue that it has been at the expense of individual pride, cultural values and traditional occupations. Few scholars, however, have investigated whether such traditional occupations are actually available to all segments of contemporary Pacific island populations. Detailed examination of the economic options and activities of itinerant handicraft sellers in Tonga suggests that overpopulation and land shortages severely restrict participation in traditional occupations. Handicraft selling is consequently viewed by many Tongans as an immediate source of much needed cash, having low costs for the producer and providing freedom to participate in other socioeconomic and village activities.     

The link between product diversification and performance among Spanish manufacturing firms: Analyzing the role of firm size

This study sheds additional light on the product diversification‐performance relationship for firms in a country having recently attained an advanced economy status in our period of analysis. We assume there will be an inverted U‐shaped relationship and use a sample of small, medium, and large Spanish manufacturing firms between 1994 and 2008. Our findings provide solid support for this assumption, and are identical when the sample consists of small, medium, and large firms and of large firms alone. Our results also suggest that the larger the firm, the higher the optimal level of diversification. Panel data models are used to control for unobservable heterogeneity and potential endogeneity problems. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Barbados Spirits Inc.

This case focuses on the audit of a subsidiary in Barbados of a Multi‐National Entity (“MNE”), a distiller in Toronto. The MNE is a large and important international client to the accounting firm. The firm provides both tax advisory and audit services to the MNE. The MNE, following advice of the accounting firm, has utilized an offshore related party to structure transactions that avoid taxes in Barbados. These related party transactions are a detriment to the interests of critical users of the financial statements, namely the minority shareholders and the tax authorities of Barbados. The auditor is now faced with evaluating the adequacy of the related party note disclosure and the completeness of the income tax provision. Independence issues of a self‐interest threat (importance of the client) and self‐review threat (evaluating the adequacy of the income tax provision based on tax advice provided by the firm) are explored.     

Tourism's external account and the balance of payments

This paper argues that the balance of payments on tourism account is not the best measure of economic tourism activity needed for good policy formulation at the government level. The balance on tourism should be replaced with a broader concept, tourism's external account, which includes expenditures and receipts from tourists together with those other international transactions which follow indirectly from tourism. This concept will provide a broader understanding of the tourism industry so that better policy decisions can be made.     

Qualitative Research in the Service of Understanding Learners and Users of Statistics

This paper seeks to add to a scholarly dialogue regarding the role and value of qualitative techniques in research on learning and using statistics. The paper briefly outlines some of the core assumptions of qualitative research methods, and presents four examples to illustrate selected qualitative methods that are used by educational researchers and service organizations. The discussion emphasizes the need to integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches in research on learners and users of statistics, and suggests that such integration may be needed to study emerging web-based communities of learners and users of statistics.     

A New Measure of Multicollinearity in Linear Regression Models

Databases with a lot of data very often mean little information. It is because of the collinearity of variables which consist of the data of the database. This collinearity is in fact a kind of redundancy of the database.
In the study a new indicator is given. With this indicator, which contains the eigenvalues of the variables' correlation matrix, it is possible to quantify the percentage of collinearity: from 0% (all the eigenvalues are equal to 1) to 100% (all the eigenvalues, except the first, are equal to 0).     

Peruco: A Method for Producing Safe and Consistent Microdata

A new method for protecting microdata is introduced. This method, per turbation of u nsafe co mbinations (Peruco), eliminates unsafe combinations in the records in which they occur, by replacing them with safe combinations that are also consistent with the other values in the remainder of the records. Consistency is relative to a set of micro-edits that is supposed to be given along with the microdata. A deterministic optimization model is discussed, as well as possible extensions.