The Association Between Activity-Based Costing and Manufacturing Performance

This study examines the association between activity-based costing and manufacturing performance. Results using a cross-sectional sample of manufacturing plants indicates that extensive ABC use is associated with higher quality levels and greater improvements in cycle time and quality, and is indirectly associated with manufacturing cost reductions through quality and cycle time improvements. However, on average, extensive ABC use has no significant association with return on assets. Instead, we find weak evidence that the association between ABC and accounting profitability is contingent on the plant's operational characteristics.     

Incentive Fees and Mutual Funds

This paper examines the effect of incentive fees on the behavior of mutual fund managers. Funds with incentive fees exhibit positive stock selection ability, but a beta less than one results in funds not earning positive fees. From an investor's perspective, positive alphas plus lower expense ratios make incentive-fee funds attractive. However, incentive-fee funds take on more risk than non-incentive-fee funds, and they increase risk after a period of poor performance. Incentive fees are useful marketing tools, since more new cash flows go into incentive-fee funds than into non-incentive-fee funds, ceteris paribus.     

Measuring the economic benefit from R&D: results from the mass, length and flow programmes of the UK national measurement system

This study sought to measure the economic consequences of reduced expenditure on specific sections of the UK National Measurement System (NMS), part of the state-funded technological infrastructure. A method was developed which can be adapted to any publicly or privately financed R&D of which the benefits and cost-effectiveness are unclear or contested.
The recent interactions between the NMS and industry were investigated empirically. Five mechanisms were found to account for the majority of instances of successful value creation. Several case studies of each mechanism were collected, illustrating their existence beyond reasonable doubt.
Each of the cut projects would have been expected to have encouraged growth and profitability in identified sectors of the economy through one or more of these five mechanisms. The effects of the cuts were modelled over 30 years. Compared to the costs of the cut projects projected over the same period, the benefits to the economy were predicted to exceed the costs.     

Social reporting by islamic banks

The last thirty years have witnessed the appearance and rapid expansion of Islamic banking both inside and outside the Islamic world. Islamic banks provide financial products that do not violate Sharia , the Islamic law of human conduct. The Islamic principles upon which the banks claim to operate give an important role to social issues. Applying these principles, we develop a benchmark set of social disclosures appropriate to Islamic banks. These are then compared, using a disclosure index approach, the actual social disclosures contained in the annual reports of twenty-nine Islamic banks (located in sixteen countries) to this benchmark. In addition, content analysis is undertaken to measure the volume of social disclosures. Our analysis suggests that social reporting by Islamic banks falls significantly short of our expectations. The results of the analysis also suggest that banks required to pay the Islamic religious tax Zakah provide more social disclosures than banks not subject to Zakah .     

New MII Circular on Telecom and Internet Firms

On July 13, 2006, the Min istry of Information Indus try of the People＇s Repub lic of China （＂MII＂） issued a new notice concerning foreign-invested telecom and internet companies in China. MII＇s ＂Notice on Strengthening Regulation of Foreign Investment in and Operations of Value-Added Telecom Services＂ （the ＂MII Circular＂）, further clarifies the existing regulatory framework governing foreign investment in internet and other value-added telecommunications （＂ VATS ＂） businesses in China.     

Cointegration and causality in the Asian and emerging foreign exchange markets: Evidence from the 1990s financial crises

This article examines the cointegration level, changes in the existence and directions of causality of the foreign exchange (FX) rates in the Asian and emerging markets during the 1990s financial crises. Engle and Granger's simple bivariate and Johansen's multivariate cointegrations are applied to the FX rates for the 1994 Mexican, 1997 Asian, 1998 Russian, and 1999 Brazilian crises. In addition, the article conducts the Granger causality test and impulse response analysis to examine the causality pattern in all the FX rates. The analysis shows most of the pre-Mexican causality disappears and significant numbers of new causality emerge in the 1994 Mexican crisis while the 1997 Asian crisis generates significant spillover effects into the later part of the 1998 Russian and 1999 Brazilian crises.     

R. J. Chambers on Securities and Obscurities: Making a Case for the Reform of the Law of Company Accounts in the 1970s

This study examines the contribution of Raymond J. Chambers to the British inflation accounting debate in the early‐to‐mid 1970s, from the perspective of the reception of his book, Securities and Obscurities: A Case for Reform of the Law of Company Accounts, published in 1973. To structure the empirical narrative, drawing on previously unpublished documents from the R. J. Chambers Archives, we employ Czarniawska and Joerges’ ( 1996 ) notion of the ‘travel of ideas’, and Mumford’s ( 1979 ) observation of the existence of ‘inflation accounting debate cycles’. The result is a narrative that traces the environmental and material circumstances that led to Chambers’ book having a lesser impact on the British inflation debate than one would expect based on the international exposure of his ideas, his influence at the time, and the empirical rigour of his proposal. The purpose of this exercise is to assess how contextual factors, such as the choice of publisher, use of promotional material, and distribution methods, can be as (or more) important than the substance of the proposed ideas, arguments, and solutions.     

Sample attrition in the RLMS, 2001–10

The data of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) – Higher School of Economics represents one of the few nationally representative sources of household and individual data for Russia. These data have been collected since 1992 and in recent years, thanks to more secure financial and logistical support, have become a resource increasingly drawn upon by scholars and students for national and cross-national studies. In this paper, we examine the extent of non-random attrition in the RLMS and discuss the circumstances under which this might give rise to biases in econometric analysis. We illustrate this with an example drawn from the health sphere.     

Up in smoke: demarketing and consumer smoking cessation

The concept of demarketing refers to the use of marketing techniques to reduce or eliminate demand for a product or service. A review of the demarketing literature relating to health and specifically antismoking initiatives indicated that, while research on this topic exists, much of it is not grounded in an acceptable attitudinal or behavioural theory. After determining the importance placed by a sample of 18–24‐year olds on nine demarketing initiatives, two dimensions were identified that best explained this construct. Items within these dimensions were summed and averaged to form single variables, which were then used to form the attitudinal component of the Model of Goal Directed Behaviour. The findings showed that two of these variables – one that captured product packaging aspects and another that consisted of place and price items – significantly influenced the desire to quit and indirectly influenced the intention to quit. Anticipated positive emotions, frequency of quitting attempts and perceived control over quitting also positively influenced the desire and/or intention to quit. The article concludes with a discussion that interprets these findings from a theoretical and practical perspective and suggests directions for future research.     

Consumer sorting and hedonic valuation of wine attributes: exploiting data from a field experiment

This article uses a novel experimental approach to measure consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for wine attributes. We invited customers of a local supermarket who had selected a bottle of wine to purchase to participate in a valuation experiment. Integrating their original wine choice into the experiment, each participant evaluated six alternative wines, generating a rich set of data on willingness to pay and consumer characteristics. The data from the experiment allow us to compare standard shelf price‐based wine attribute valuation estimates with estimates using WTP data and an increasing amount of information about individual consumers. The full model employs individual fixed effects to estimate WTP parameters without bias from consumer sorting or supply side influences. Our WTP estimates for wine attributes differ markedly from previous attribute value estimates. Consumers in our sample display clear and stable preferences for wine varieties, but less clear preferences for appellations. Our results suggest caution is needed in using market prices to estimate parameters of the consumer valuation function for product attributes.