THE GEARING ADJUSTMENT: AN ECONOMIC PROFIT PERSPECTIVE

This paper uses an economic model to develop a conceptual basis for the gearing adjustment used in current cost financial statements. It is shown that it is necessary to adopt the entity view of the business enterprise and some very restrictive assumptions; in particular, it is assumed that the business maintains its current cost gearing ratio. Even with restrictive assumptions, however, the SSAP 16 gearing adjustment cannot be derived. Furthermore it is concluded that gearing adjustments could be completely avoided by reporting current cost operating profit together with total monetary holding gains.     

深化金融体制改革 促进经济结构调整

刚结束不久的中央经济工作会议对2009年经济工作做出了全面总结,提出了2010年经济社会发展的主要预期目标和宏观经济政策,具体部署了2010年经济工作的六大任务。会议甫一落幕,中国人民银行、各金融监管部门及各主要国有金融机构迅即召开会议,结合本单位实际,部署贯彻落实中央经济工作会议精神。     

THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF ESOPS

The purpose of this paper is to assess the economic consequences of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) by developing a general analytical model. The model is used to compare ESOPs with attempts to replicate the effects of ESOPs via alternative arrangements. The general conclusion of the paper is that in the absence of improved employee motivation, ESOP implementation has no particular economic consequence. However, an important exception to this finding may be the inexpensive access to the equity markets for the smaller, non-public firm provided by the ESOP.     

中共中央政治局会议研究经济形势和经济工作

要加强和改善宏观调控,继续实施积极的财政政策和稳健的货币政策,加大结构性减税政策力度,保持货币信贷平稳适度增长。     

UNDERSTAND THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS: A TEXT SUMMARIZATION APPROACH

Economic crises are significant threats to macroeconomic stability. They can incur large costs and bring devastating effects on economies, with the effects often spilling over into other economies. Since 2007 we have witnessed the most severe and widely spread economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the meantime, a huge amount of ongoing media coverage, reporting, analysis and debate concerning the global economic crisis has been generated. In this study we explore the possibilities of applying text summarization tools to learn from text documents the various discussions surrounding the global economic crisis. Included in our analysis are blog posts and articles of highly influential economists, as well as official speeches and publications of government organizations. The ICSI‐ILP extractive summarizer is applied in a large number of experiments, and the summary outputs are manually examined and evaluated. The results provide us with insights into the potential and limitations of state‐of‐the‐art summarization systems when used to help us quickly learn and digest large amounts of textual information. The results also suggest different ways to break the limitations of text summarization technology. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

金融宏观调控护航经济发展

在科学发展观的指引下,我国金融业实现跨越式发展,中央银行和各监管部门的工作也同样取得辉煌成就。     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DURATION AND ECONOMIC DEPRECIATION: A NOTE

This note derives an expression for duration in terms of the economic depreciation of a capital budgeting project or financial instrument. By showing how the decline in the value of an asset or liability influences duration, additional insight into the characteristics of this measure is obtained. The new formula shows that duration equals a standard value, which is adjusted for depreciation or appreciation.     

THE CONCEPT OF COMPUTATION OF EARNED ECONOMIC INCOME: A COMMENT

Four criticisms are made of Grinyer's concept of earned economic income. It is argued that (a) the relationship between his approach and other discounted cash flow methods has been insufficiently explained; (b) he has overlooked some relevant prior work; (c) he places more weight on the matching principle than it can bear; and (d) his procedure is likely to suffer from the same defects as conventional accounting methods. Since even sophisticated matching approaches to the depreciation and valuation of fixed assets appear to fail, the use of market-value based methods is advocated.     

THE CONCEPT AND COMPUTATION OF EARNED ECONOMIC INCOME: A REPLY

Skinner criticises the present author for (a) failing to discuss IRR methods, (b) placing too much reliance on the matching principle, (c) developing a procedure with the same defects as conventional accounting methods, and (d) overlooking relevant prior work. Although it does not affect the EEI analysis, (d) is in part accepted. Criticisms (a) to (c) are not however well founded within the context of the EEI analyses to date.     

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF VALUE TO THE OWNER: A REPLY

Wright's comment criticises a previous article by this author on two grounds: (i) the deprived owner of the asset was not allowed to replace it in the short run: and (ii) only two variants of the concept were considered. This reply argues that the original analysis is consistent with asset replacement in the short run and that the concept of value to the owner and its variants have been developed for special situations. When the concept is applied to accounting issues, such as periodic income measurement, it is shown to be artificial and at variance with the facts of the real world.     

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF VALUE TO THE OWNER: A COMMENT

While Ashton's analysis of the concept of value to the owner flows logically from his chosen assumptions, it does not invalidate the use made of that concept by accounting writers.