亚行帮助建立健全湄公河环境治理体系

亚行将改变货币规则以帮助优惠性借款者 亚行正改变其货币管理方式,以帮助那些优惠性"亚洲开发基金"(ADF)的借款者.亚行将废止当前"亚洲开发基金"多达15种货币的基金管理方法,引入一种基于"特别提款权"(SDR)的新方法.     

A river runs between them: An instructional case in professional services provided by a CPA firm

This instructional case presents a realistic situation in which there is a request for professional services by a CPA firm. Two towns, Weston and Easton, are involved in a dispute over the costs of a shared wastewater treatment facility. The mayor of Easton believes his town has paid more than its agreed-upon share of the facility's operating costs over the years. The mayor of Easton has approached a local CPA firm to “audit” the amount Easton has paid towards operation of the plant and determine the amount of the overpayment. Students are asked (1) to determine whether an audit can be performed, (2) if an audit cannot be performed, to decide what type of service is appropriate, (3) to research the applicable professional standards, (4) to assess whether the applicable standards can be met, (5) to develop a program that outlines the steps/procedures to be completed when providing the professional service to the mayor, and (6) to identify other concerns relevant to accepting this engagement.     

Needed: a new system of intellectual property rights

The world's current system of intellectual property rights has in recent years become unworkable and ineffective. Designed more than 100 years ago to meet the needs of an industrial era, it is inadequate to handle the ownership and distribution of intellectual property generated by the brainpower industries that have come to dominate the world's economy. The prevailing wisdom is that minor tweaking can remedy the problem. But MIT economist Lester Thurow challenges such thinking and calls instead for a new system--one redesigned from the ground up. In making his case for why the old system doesn't work anymore, Thurow lays out the challenges the new system must meet. It must offer incentives to inventors that are strong enough to offset the decline in publicly funded research. At the same time, it must protect the public interest by keeping some intellectual property--basic scientific knowledge, for example--in the public domain. The new system must be flexible enough to deal with the fact that new technologies have created new potential forms of intellectual property rights (Can pieces of a human being be patented?) and have made old rights unenforceable (When books can be downloaded from an electronic library, what does a copyright mean?). And in an increasingly global economy, a new system must meet the needs of both "catch-up" states and "keep-ahead" states. A system that ignores the lesson of history--that every country that has caught up has done so by copying--will be an unenforceable one.     

Maryland's all-payer system: a delicate balancing act

A state-regulated, all-payer system has saved Maryland an estimated $43 billion since 1976 while improving access to health care for state residents. It remains to be seen how healthcare reform will impact the system. Buy-in by hospitals, payers, and even the federal government is a must to keep the all-payer system working. In other states, similar efforts have failed. Uniform rate-setting takes some of the guesswork out of financial planning, but it has also resulted in lower margins and greater debt for Maryland hospitals.     

Funding a PAYG pension system: the case of Italy

Italy is characterised by a mature pay‐as‐you‐go social security system and by particularly adverse population projections. Given these trends, the social security contribution rate is expected to increase above its current high level. This hinders the development of employer‐provided pension funds and introduces a significant wedge between labour cost and earnings that discourages both labour demand and labour supply. Any proposal to reduce payroll taxes and to reform the system in the direction of partial funding has to cope with the state of Italian public finances. Italy has to comply with the Stability and Growth Pact that imposes constraints on budget deficit and debt trends. Using micro data from the Bank of Italy's Survey of Household Income and Wealth and official population projections, we estimate future employment trends under different demographic and macroeconomic scenarios and compute the cost of the transition. We show that it would be substantially reduced if positive effects on employment were induced by the payroll tax reduction.     

斯蒂格利茨：重新建立一个新的金融体制

前不久,诺贝尔经济学奖得主、前世界银行首席经济学家约瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨教授在中国人民大学汉青经济与金融高级研究院发表演讲,对当前的全球经济危机成因与现状等问题发表了看法     

新一代核心业务系统:通向国际化银行的阶梯

国家开发银行、中信银行引进国外核心业务系统所引发的讨论尚未平息,华夏银行新一代核心业务系统上线的消息又将这一话题引向更深层次。核心业务系统之所以成为近年来国内银行信息化建设持久不衰的热点话题,一方面因为在银行整体IT建设中,核心系统的建设首当其冲;另一方面,也是因为中国银行业几年来在引进国外核心系统的实践中成败并存,毁誉参半。     

个人通用信用评分系统：我国征信体系建设的新跨越

经过20余年的发展,我国信用经济已经进入快速发展时期,房贷、车贷、信用卡消费快速增长。如何更好地监管个人信用、更好地防范金融风险已经成为金融机构乃至商家关注的重点。现代市场经济是建立在法制基础上的信用经济,高度发达的社会信用体系在防范金融风险、提高市场资源配置效率等方面都发挥着积极作用,征信体系的建设则是整个社会信用体系建设的重要环节。     

Zero-base budgeting: Prospects for developing a semi-confusing budgeting information system

This paper argues for the recognition that zero-base budgeting (ZBB) is a destabilizing process which may co-exist in the future with traditional budgeting systems (TBS) to form a semi-confusing information system. The stabilizing and destabilizing features of a semi-confusing information system are explored first. The characteristics of ZBB as a formal budgeting process are examined next to provide a comparative profile of its destabilizing features in a changing environment. Analytically, ZBB characteristics match with the destabilizing properties of a semi-confusing information system and this insight has substantial implications for the future use of ZBB.     

PMIS:中国现代化支付业务管理的利器——访中国人民银行清算总中心副主任李德功

近几年，人民银行在深化改革的同时，认真履行金融服务职能，在应用现代信息技术和服务理念创新、改进金融服务方面倾注了巨大精力。中国现代化支付体系的建设运行，为中国金融机构适应社会主义市场经济和经济全球化创造了重要基础条件。随着2005年6月大额支付系统和2006年6月小额支付系统相继完成全国推广，“建立统一、高效、安全的支付清算系统”的基础设施目标已基本实现。2007年5月8日，作为中国现代化支付体系中重要的组成部分——支付管理信息系统（PMIS）也开始正式在全国上线试运行。[第一段]     

重庆:长江上游地区的经济中心

<正> 重庆具有3000多年的悠久历史,是中国西部唯一的直辖市。全市幅员面积8.24万平方公里,人口3070万,是目前中国行政辖区最大、人口最多的城市,也是中国西部地区最大的工商业重镇、长江上游地区的经济中心城市和交通通信枢纽,在实施中国西部大开发战略中,将发挥聚散辐射作用和桥梁窗口作用。     

Horizontal inequity under a dual income tax system: principles and measurement

Tax systems with separate taxation of wage and capital income, also called dual income tax systems, have gained relevance through the Mirrlees Review. Obviously, such tax systems are exposed to horizontal equity (HE) failures, or horizontal inequity (HI). HE and HI have a firm grip on assessment of fair tax policies, both from an academic point of view and in general public debate. The dual income tax system of Norway was modified by the tax reform of 2006 precisely because the previous schedule failed to deliver equal tax treatment of equals. This paper discusses the meaning and measurement of HI effects of dual income tax systems, and evaluates the development of HI for Norway over the time period 2000–2008 using microdata. A copula-based identification strategy efficiently establishes a framework for evaluations of HI over time. The dual income tax system and the early announcement of its impending revision during the period under examination created measurement problems which we had to account for by defining a new income concept for the empirical strategy. As expected, we find less HI in Norway after the reform of 2006.     

FutureSelf: Emerging digitized life patterns and a personal future simulation system

Unique information sources, available and accessible in digital networked environments, can be used as a data set for the extrapolation of an individual's potential futures. Based on an interactive analysis process, a carefully crafted system using artificial intelligence, data mining processes and behavior adaptive features can generate contextualized interactive personal future simulations in the form of interconnected micro-future scenarios. Micro-future scenarios provide context-sensitive information, alternative future paths and recommendations based on an individual's personal circumstances and her environment. The emerging future narrative can be delivered effectively by using different communication channels and methods in digital environments. The system aims to enhance an individual's awareness of the consequences of her existence by connecting her personal and social actions to a wider social, cultural, political, economical and ecological context.     

Experiences with EXGAME: an expert system for playing a competitive business game

This paper looks at expert systems in management, by using a business game as an experimental vehicle. An expert system called EXGAME was developed to play a business game, which is normally played by students, with minimal human intervention. This paper concentrates on the effectiveness of EXGAME as compared with human players for tasks at different levels. EXGAME was able to replace human players in decision making at the operational level, and indeed outperform them. However, it proved to be impractical to replace human input at the strategic level. The paper also sheds some light on the problems of trying to build an expert system when there is no real expert. A combination of a modular knowledge-base structure and a process of ‘learning by experimentation’ was effective in this case; it is suggested that this may be an appropriate development strategy in other similar situations. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

智能票据影像处理系统：银行非现场稽核的新手段

非现场稽核作为银行业务处理的重要环节,具有每日业务处理量大、凭证类型多、纸质规格不一等特点。在非现场稽核系统中,如何选择文档处理设备,以优化处理流程、保障有效的处理时间和减少包括人工处理成本在内的运行管理费用,成为建设一个成功非现场稽核项目的关键。     

The Business Values Scorecard within BAE Systems: The evolution of a performance measurement system

This paper explores the evolution of a performance measurement system in BAE Systems, a UK aerospace company. In 1994, the company embarked on a culture change project, which focused the organisation on five key values: performance, people, customers, partnerships, and innovation and technology. Tracing the mechanisms used to implement these values through the culture change project, the study describes the introduction of the “Business Values Scorecard” (BVS), which provided a way of translating the five key values into a coherent set of performance measures. The paper contrasts the BVS in BAE Systems with the balanced scorecard (BSC) of Kaplan and Norton, emphasising the importance of “coherence”, rather than cause-and-effect relationships. Furthermore, the BVS was not simply designed and then implemented; instead it evolved over an extended period of time. Finally, while it reflected the strategic vision of senior managers, the BVS was used as a tool to enable strategy to emerge from within the organisation, rather than as a mechanism for cascading down the hierarchy the strategy previously established by top-level managers. However, although the profitability of the company increased significantly over the period of the culture change project, many other things were also changing; consequently, it is not possible to isolate the effects on profits of introducing the BVS. Nevertheless, the belief within BAE Systems is that the BVS has made an important contribution to the recent success of the company.     

Commentary: A proposal for theoretical models of stakeholder perceptions of a new financial reporting system

This commentary explores the article by Fontes et al. published in this issue of Accounting Forum. They argue that the scope of IFRS continues to widen across the world, using a number of social science disciplines to discuss stakeholder perceptions of change. The commentary uses Hegel's Science of Logic to situate their arguments through four key theoretical approaches that are prominent in the accounting literature. Ultimately, this has the potential to position IASB frameworks in such a way as to challenge the economic and neoliberal logic on which modern accounting is based.     

The localisation of a global management control system

This study examines how the management control system designed at the head office of an increasingly globalised hotel chain was enacted within one of its sub-units; a joint venture operating in the hospitality industry in Portugal. We found that the practices which comprised the global management control system were reproduced within this joint venture. Yet, at the same time, its managers made the global system ‘work’ for them, thereby producing variety. Albeit our findings are in line with Barrett, Cooper, and Jamal’s (2005) study, which was inspired by [Giddens, 1990] and [Giddens, 1991], we interpret them somewhat differently as we draw on the work of [Robertson, 1992] and [Robertson, 1995]. We view localisation as a process through which heterogeneous practices can emerge to facilitate the homogenising tendencies of globalisation by complementing, rather than undermining or opposing, it. As a result, the local can differentiate itself from the global. Also, by linking our findings to the notion of situated functionality in Ahrens and Chapman (2007), we argue that this heterogeneity can be produced when organisational members, whatever their level in the organisation, seek to achieve both the corporate and their own specific objectives.