Optimal penalty and accounting policy

This study considers risky investment projects under adverse selection and examines optimal penalties for erroneous auditing reports to maximize social welfare. These penalties give firms an incentive to choose accounting policies that maximize social welfare. We characterize the optimal penalties such that efficient firms choose an aggressive accounting policy and inefficient firms choose a conservative accounting policy.     

中外会计要素的比较与分析

会计要素是按经济特征归类的会计对象,是构筑财务报表的根本组件.由于各国会计对象是一致的,会计目的也大体相似,因此各国会计准则所确认和定义的会计要素有许多相似之处.但各国会计所处的具体环境不同,制定准则时的考虑也各有侧重,会计要素又不尽相同.本文拟对中国、美国财务会计准则委员会(FASB)和国际会计准则委员会(IASC)所确认和定义的会计要素进行比较,以期增进了解,促进协调.     

Industrial policy in Eastern Europe: A three-country comparison

The design and implementation of industrial policy in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary in the 1960s and 1970s are explored. In Czechoslovakia where management of the economy was more centralized than in Hungary and Poland, a policy of promoting production and export of nuclear equipment was effectively carried out; other product groups were less successful. In Poland, bureaucratic resistance undermined the implementation of industrial policies (which were never unambiguously formulated). The Hungarian policy was chiefly oriented toward import substitution. The statistical evidence gives only weak support for the effective conduct of industrial policies in these countries.     

管理者行为对会计政策选择的动因探讨

上市公司会计政策选择直接关系到上市公司会计信息质量的高低,进而关系到资本市场的运行效率,是资本市场研究领域的重要课题.本文从沪市2006年公布年报的上市公司(不含ST等特殊处理的公司和金融保险业的公司)中随机挑选300家企业作为研究样本,从管理者的视角出发,对企业会计政策选择的动因进行了实证研究,论述管理者行为是如何影响企业会计政策选择的.进而对我国上市公司的会计政策选择动因提出自己的看法,以期对我国会计政策选择研究有所裨益.     

Social security and the elderly: A simulation of policy changes

This paper investigates the labour supply effects and the corresponding financial implications that would result from some specific changes in the British social security system. For that purpose it uses a previously estimated model of labour supply decisions by elderly people and carries out a simulation exercise of each of the policy changes considered. These are: raising the state retirement pension, abolishing the earnings rule, changing the statutory pensionable age and introducing a system of flexible retirement. We find that, of the four policy changes considered, the last two would have the largest labour supply effects.     

Forward-looking versus recursive-dynamic modeling in climate policy analysis: A comparison

This paper develops a multi-regional general equilibrium model for climate policy analysis based on the latest version of the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model. We develop two versions so that we can solve the model either as a fully inter-temporal optimization problem (forward-looking, perfect foresight) or recursively. The standard EPPA model on which these models are based is solved recursively, and it is necessary to simplify some aspects of it to make inter-temporal solution possible. The forward-looking capability allows one to better address economic and policy issues such as borrowing and banking of GHG allowances, efficiency implications of environmental tax recycling, endogenous depletion of fossil resources, international capital flows, and optimal emissions abatement paths among others. To evaluate the solution approaches, we benchmark each version to the same macroeconomic path, and then compare the behavior of the two versions under a climate policy that restricts greenhouse gas emissions. We find that the energy sector and CO₂ price behavior are similar in both versions (in the recursive version of the model we force the inter-temporal theoretical efficiency result that abatement through time should be allocated such that the CO₂ price rises at the interest rate.) The main difference that arises is that the macroeconomic costs are substantially lower in the forward-looking version of the model, since it allows consumption shifting as an additional avenue of adjustment to the policy. On the other hand, the simplifications required for solving the model as an optimization problem, such as dropping the full vintaging of the capital stock and fewer explicit technological options, likely have effects on the results. Moreover, inter-temporal optimization with perfect foresight poorly represents the real economy where agents face high levels of uncertainty that likely lead to higher costs than if they knew the future with certainty. We conclude that while the forward-looking model has value for some problems, the recursive model produces similar behavior in the energy sector and provides greater flexibility in the details of the system that can be represented.     

Professionals inside the board room: accounting expertise of directors and dividend policy

Directors’ personal attributes have significant impacts on governance effectiveness. We study whether directors’ accounting expertise affects corporate financial policy and investigate dividend in specific. We construct a dataset of audit committee directors’ accounting expertise for Standard & Poor 500 firms from 2005 to 2012. We first verify directors’ monitoring roles by showing that firms with accounting expert sitting on their audit committees demonstrate stronger accounting conservatism. In our main tests, we find that these firms maintain lower dividend payment level, which are less sensitive to earnings volatility. This suggests directors’ advisory roles in financial policy. We further show that our accounting expertise cannot be subsumed by management ability. In additional test, we further examine the baseline results conditional on analyst forecast error. Our findings highlight the importance of directors’ professional expertise in fulfilling their governance roles.     

Quantifying public preferences for agri-environmental policy in Scotland: A comparison of methods

This paper compares two methods for determining policy priorities for reform of Scottish agricultural support. Multifunctional agriculture attempts to establish a new balance between traditional commodity support and payment for the production of non-market goods and services that are increasingly demanded by the public. Supplying non-market goods presents particular problems for optimal policy design, not least the elicitation of consumer demand for those goods. From public focus groups, a range of attributes was derived as central to the Scottish public’s preferences for future agri-environmental reform. This information was then combined in two separate survey methods using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and choice experiments (CE). Both applications suggest that the public has defined preferences and a willingness to pay (using general income taxation) to affect changes beyond the status quo, and that policy payments should be targeted towards both environmental and social benefits. The divergent preference orderings derived from the alternative methods can be considered in the light of previous methodological debates on question framing, bounded rationality and respondent uncertainty. We speculate about the validity of alternative methodologies for informing particular policy questions.     

公允价值观:我国金融工具准则中的应用与国际比较

财政部于2006年2月15日发布了我国新的企业会计准则体系,其中显著的特点之一是引入了公允价值观,并将公允价值作为会计计量属性之一在四项关于金融工具的具体准则中全面应用.应用公允价值观对金融工具及衍生金融工具进行会计计量是我国新会计准则与国际准则最明显的趋同,表明我国金融工具会计准则向实现国际化的方向演变.     

The position of women and demographic policy

This article analyzes the effect of women's social roles on fertility and the possibilities of influencing fertility by means of demographic policies in the USSR. The most important influences on the birth rate are related to the changing social position of women and the functions of the family which have resulted from social, economic, and cultural transformations in the Soviet state since the revolution. The processes of industrialization, urbanization, higher labor productivity, and rising educational and cultural standards have removed the productive functions of the family and have also altered its consumer functions. The upbringing of children is increasingly labor intensive because of the need for more educated, higher quality workers. In 1970, 82% of women of working age were employed; their greater involvement in social production and reduced free time, combined with the prestige and economic and social independence gained from outside work, have encouraged a small family orientation. Comprehensive demographic policies including measures to help women combine work in social production with motherhood are needed to promote 2 or 3 child families. Along with measures aimed at the population as a whole, specific measures are needed that take into account the distinctive life styles and behavior of separate local population groups. A socialist society with a planned economy can utilize diverse methods of encouraging childbirth, including material assistance to families with children and sociopsychological measures to promote larger families.     

公允价值观：我国金融工具准则中的应用与国际比较

财政部于2006年2月15日发布了我国新的企业会计准则体系，其中显著的特点之一是引入了公允价值观，并将公允价值作为会计计量属性之一在四项关于金融工具的具体准则中全面应用。应用公允价值观对金融工具及衍生金融工具进行会计计量是我国新会计准则与国际准则最明显的趋同，表明我国金融工具会计准则向实现国际化的方向演变。     

制造业企业会计政策选择之纳税筹划研究

纳税人在进行纳税筹划过程中都普遍认为,只要进行纳税筹划就可以减轻税收负担,增加自身收益,而很少甚至根本不考虑纳税筹划的风险。其实,纳税筹划作为一种计划决策方法,本身也是有风险的。当然,制造业企业生产经营中的具体纳税筹划应在企管中统筹安排。     

A comparison of optimal policy rules prior to and during inflation targeting: empirical evidence from Bank of Canada

We examine policy rules that are consistent with inflation targeting (IT) framework in a small macroeconomic model of the Canadian economy. We set up an optimal linear regulator problem and derive policy rules to compare the dynamics of pre-IT and IT eras. We find that while the optimal monetary policy rule in the pre-IT period is best described with a loss function that attaches equal weight to price stability, financial stability and output stability; the IT era is dominated by the price stability objective followed by the financial stability and output stability, consecutively. Moreover, we do not find an explicit role for exchange rate stability in the objective function of the Bank of Canada for both monetary policy eras. We, then, compare the properties of the derived optimal rules with those of an ad hoc Taylor rule for the IT period. In response to inflationary shocks, Taylor rule brings down inflation rates more quickly compared to the derived policy rules, but at the cost of a higher sacrifice ratio and more volatile interest rates.     

Monetary policy and unemployment: A disaggregated analysis

This paper disaggregates unemployment into broadly defined sectors and occupations. It estimates the impact that a change in the Federal Funds rate (FFR) has on the magnitude and time path of unemployment in each of these sectors and occupations. It finds that there is a substantial differential impact. Specifically, the paper shows that an increase in the nominal Federal Funds rate affects unemployment much more severely in two sectors and in two broad occupational groupings than it does in the others.     

Opening a policy window for organisational change and full-cost accounting: The creation of BC Hydro's water use planning program

British Columbia's Water Use Planning (WUP) program is a multi-stakeholder process that revises the operating plans of BC Hydro's hydroelectric facilities in order to consider water values beyond hydropower. Using a model of policy change, this paper analyses the circumstances that enabled the emergence of WUP and prompted BC Hydro to change its decision-making processes to better consider environmental and social concerns.External factors, including dam operations' ecological impacts, an imprecise regulatory environment, and worsening relationships with regulators, highlighted the need for a change in operating BC Hydro facilities. Factors internal to BC Hydro included the development of a business case, concerns regarding the utility's reputation and public expectations. While different approaches were explored for solving BC Hydro's problems, a policy window for change opened within a shifting context provided by the election of a more progressive government, the growth of the environmental movement, and new approaches to taking complex multi-stakeholder, multiple resource decisions. Following a successful pilot process and government direction to expand WUP, factors that enabled its institutionalisation included financial resources to compensate for the foregone power, the presence of visionary individuals, the background preparation that facilitated a successful pilot WUP, and the urgent need of a solution.     

Redistribution policy: A European model

Following the rationale for regional redistribution programs described in the official documents of the European Union, this paper studies a simple multicountry model built around two regions: a core and a periphery. Technological spillovers link firms' productivity within each of the two regions, and each country's territory falls partly in the core and partly in the periphery, but the exact shares vary across countries. In line with the official view of the European Union, we find that the efficient regional allocation requires both national and international transfers. If migration is fully free across all borders, the optimal redistribution policy results from countries' uncoordinated policies. However, if countries have the option of setting even imperfect border barriers, then efficiency is likely to require coordination on both barriers and international transfers (both of which will be set at positive levels). The need for coordination increases as the Union increases in size.