Computer-assisted teaching and learning in accounting: pedagogy or product?

The availability of cost-effective computer technologies is a dynamic that has the potential to dramatically change university accounting education. There are various motivations for university accounting departments to adopt computers and computer-assisted learning technologies, and a range of applications are available. The application of computer technologies has implications for student performance, efficiency and effectiveness within accounting departments, and course content—all of which should be considered. The possibilities for generating broad accounting education reform with computers are also significant.Computer technology should not be seen as a passive addition to the classroom. If driven by the desire to economise on the inputs to the educational process, or to expand the conventional content of accounting courses, such technology may have dysfunctional consequences.This paper examines the role of computer technologies in accounting education, the motivation for their introduction and use, and the impact they may have on the contemporary education of accounting students.     

Complementary currencies: what role should they be playing in local and regional government?

The current climate of fiscal austerity has seen a resurgence in ‘complementary currencies’ as local and regional governments look for ways to use under-utilized assets, maintain employment and avoid local economic decline. The authors explore how local and regional governments can facilitate complementary currencies to reduce the impact of external economic shocks and enable their economies to continue to function in the face of austerity. They recommend that localities consider participating in existing complementary currency ‘circles’.     

What causes home asset bias and how should it be measured?

Many explanations of home asset bias involve intuitions that should affect the data inputs used by investors in optimizing portfolios: (1) transaction costs affecting expected returns, (2) perceived riskiness of foreign assets affecting standard deviations, and (3) omitted assets affecting correlations. Only the first area has been examined empirically. We examine the empirical feasibility of the second and third explanations, as well as whether combining explanations can fully account for home asset bias. We find that no single set of adjustments can explain home asset bias by itself. Combining adjustments is promising but the implied correlation structure among asset returns is puzzling.     

Higher education and stakeholders’ donations: successful civic crowdfunding in an Italian university

Can civic crowdfunding be used to improve the structures and services offered by public universities? Are stakeholders willing to make donations to such projects? This paper answers these questions by analysing a successful civic crowdfunding project in an Italian university. Stakeholders were found to be willing to engage in crowdfunding and make donations. The key to success is to ensure effective communication and to draw on feelings of belonging to the institution.     

Commentary: The US and IFRS: Which Way Ahead?

Standard setters, SEC staff and distinguished academics joined together at a panel session of the American Accounting Association meeting in Denver in August 2011 to discuss what course the United States (US) should take with regard to the adoption of IFRS. Panellists drew attention to the political dimensions of the decision. While it might be politically unattractive for the US to surrender some of its power to set its own standards, it would also be unattractive for the US to stay on the sidelines while important international agreements were made. Panellists also looked at developments in the adoption and implementation of IFRS around the world, drew attention to important uncertainties in countries such as China and India, and questioned how far global uniformity was a realistic objective; comparability might be a more sensible goal.     

Accounting students’ perceptions of effective teaching and approaches to learning: impact on overall student satisfaction

This study is concerned with the ways to improve the quality of learning experiences of accounting students. Drawing on the effective teaching and student approach to learning literature, we hypothesise that effective teaching and students’ approach to learning (deep versus surface learning) are two important predictors of the quality of the learning experience. The hypotheses were tested using survey data of second-year undergraduate students enrolled in two core accounting subjects at an Australian university. The data were analysed using the partial least-squares structural equation modelling approach. The study aims to make a useful contribution to theory and teaching practice.     

Supervisor and Market Analysts: What Should Research be Seeking?

This article is primarily directed towards examining the desirability of incorporating market signals in the process of supervision of commercial banks by regulators and insurers. But the ideas developed here can also be applied to the general problem of using market information to assess the solvency and safety of any financial or non-financial institution.Market prices and yields of securities anticipate actions by regulators, central banks, and other players due to the fact that such actions may materially influence the risk and the expected return associated with investment decisions pertaining to those securities. It is well known that the yield curve of government securities such as T-bills, T-notes and T-bonds reflect the market's consensus regarding the actions that the Federal reserve may take as they pertain to the valuation of such securities. The extent to which the market has already discounted the future actions of the central bank will no doubt play a role in the way in which the central bank may think about its actions, its actual effect and how it relates to its intended effects.The extent to which market prices can provide useful guides depends on the underlying market structure and the practices in the industry.While markets may do lot of the hard work in aggregating and incorporating future actions, the task of supervision and regulation can never be put on automatic pilot. Ideally, supervisory policies should effectively combine the market signals with initiatives that serve to maintain the safety and the soundness of the underlying markets. I will begin by exploring the extent to which equity prices may be used as a signal of bank credit risk. I will then explore the advantages and disadvantages of using subordinated debt securities to derive a market signal.     

Who should teach what? Australian perceptions of the roles of universities and practice in the education of professional accountants

This paper addresses the respective roles and responsibilities of universities and practitioners in educating professional accountants. The issues are explored by a review of the literature in accounting and other professions regarding the respective roles of universities and employers in the development of both technical and non-technical knowledge and skills of professionals, particularly accounting practitioners. The literature review suggests that critics of university-based education fail to recognise (a) the changes that have occurred in the roles and responsibilities of accounting practitioners, and (b) the opportunity costs necessarily associated with providing generalist accounting degrees. Universities and employers have comparative advantages for the development of different types of professional skills and knowledge. These insights are extended by way of a series of interviews with Australian accounting practitioners, representatives from professional accounting bodies, recent accounting graduates, and accounting students about their perceptions of the respective responsibilities and roles of universities and employers. Although some interviewees recognised that universities cannot be ‘all things to all people’, there was a tendency to expect universities to have the major responsibility for the development in accounting graduates of both technical and non-technical knowledge and skills. Such perceptions tended to understate the responsibilities and comparative advantage of employers and result in unrealistic expectations about the outcomes of a university education. Employers need to be made more aware of the resource and other limitations associated with university programs and should develop meaningful opportunities for learning and reflection within workplace contexts.     

Variable annuities and the option to seek risk: Why should you diversify?

We analyze the impacts of an additional rider incorporated in recent retirement products. The payoff is linked to the performance of a multi asset investment strategy and includes a minimum interest rate guarantee. In addition, the buyer receives the option to decide on the investments dynamically. Prominent examples are so called variable annuities. Due to the embedded guarantee, these products are interesting for risk averse investors who benefit from diversification. However, the price setting of the provider takes into account the most risky strategy. This implies that the investor mitigates optimally between the diversification and the worst case strategy. We analyze the distortion and utility effects caused by the additional rider in the presence of background risk and borrowing constraints. A simulation analysis sheds light on the question if the additional rider is worth its costs.     

Bank capital and credit market competition: Will competitive pressure lead to higher capital levels?

This paper establishes a theoretical model to study the relationship between credit market competition and bank capital. In the model, bank capital can alleviate the debt overhang problem, and the extent to which banks can enjoy the gain of holding capital is decreasing in the competitive pressure in the credit market. It is shown that credit market competition reduces banks' incentive to hold capital. Deposit insurance also induces banks to hold less capital. In addition, bank capital regulation is welfare improving, and banks may voluntarily hold capital in excess of regulatory minimums.     

Towards an orientation of higher education in the post Rio + 20 process: How is the game changing?

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the implications of sustainable development for the future orientation of higher education, especially after the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio + 20). A qualitative trend analysis is being used for this purpose, in the context of which three macro trends are combined: (1) higher education that has been developed via five periods; (2) sustainable development that has evolved through three stages; and (3) the nexus between sustainable development and higher education which has strengthened through three phases. The simultaneous analysis of the macro trends regarding their possible interactive effects (through an expert panel discussion) demonstrates that higher education and universities under the influence of sustainable development elements are entering into a new era in which the function of “higher education for sustainable development” could be interpreted as the seeds of a newly emerging mission for universities. In this regard, it is expected that the concept of “sustainable university” is likely to become more common to meet the emerging mission. Consistent with the Rio + 20 outcomes, the authors analyzed the concept of “sustainable university” and identified the fact that it is practically divided into three interrelated and complementary categories, namely social-, environmental-, and economic-oriented university in pursuit of actualizing sustainable development.     

New development: Parliamentary ‘watchdogs’ taking a higher profile on government programme performance and accountability?

The ‘Holy Grail’ of decades of public sector reform has been the public availability of readily-understandable, reliable and meaningful performance information about government activities and programmes. Maps have been drawn; processes have been developed; some actual progress has been made in a number of countries; but the end is not in sight. Put simply, particularly in Westminster government-type systems, it remains the case, at least in broad terms, that the government is responsible for policy; the public service for administration and service delivery; and the parliament for oversight and review. In reality, the situation has become more complicated with the growth of the ‘information economy’, internationalization, the greater involvement of the private sector in government activities generally and changing public views and expectations of government, not least in respect of trust and confidence in politicians and public institutions. At the very least, it is still a situation of ‘work-in-progress’ trying to catch up with the changing national and international environment.     

Corporate governance and regulation: Can there be too much of a good thing?

We investigate how company-level corporate governance practices and country-level legal investor protection jointly affect company performance. We find that in any legal regime there are a few specific governance practices that improve performance. Companies with good governance practices operating in stringent legal environments, however, show a valuation discount relative to similar companies operating in flexible legal environments. At the same time, a stronger country-level regime does not reduce the valuation discount of companies with weak governance practices. Our analysis suggests a threshold level of country development above which stringent regulation hurts the performance of well governed companies or has a neutral effect for poorly governed companies.     

The eurozone: What is to be done to maintain macro and financial stability?

The financial stability of the eurozone depends on its macroeconomic stability and vice versa. We construct a macro DSGE model of the eurozone and its two main regions, the North and the South, with the aim of matching the macro facts of these economies by indirect inference and using the resulting empirically-based model to assess possible new policy regimes that could maintain financial stability. The model we have found to fit the facts suggests that substantial gains in stability and consumer welfare are possible if the fiscal authority in each region is given the freedom to respond to its own economic situation. Further gains could come with the restoration of monetary independence to the two regions, in effect creating a second ‘southern euro’ bloc. Enhanced fiscal flexibility increases fluctuations in debt and deficit ratios to GDP while keeping average ratios stable, maintaining solvency. A reformed Stability and Growth Pact could be limited to monitoring solvency.     

Pension fund taxation and risk-taking: should we switch from the EET to the TEE regime?

Most countries tax retirement savings according to the EET (exempt contributions, exempt accumulations, taxable withdrawals) regime. Relevant literature recommends the use of TEE (taxable contributions, exempt accumulations, exempt withdrawals) or EET systems and emphasizes their near equivalence. We show that this near equivalence breaks down when considering the tax effects on risk-taking. This paper proves that the TEE regime is risk-taking neutral, while the EET regime does not, in general, respect this property. The argument of risk-taking neutrality thus calls for broadening the use of the TEE configuration.     

Quantitative skills: is there an expectation gap between the education and practice of management accountants?

The extent to which management accountants are receiving appropriate training in quantitative methods is examined. It finds a disparity between the wide range of quantitative techniques covered within the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants' syllabi and the limited use made of many of the techniques in practice. It also reports a rich picture of differing expectations of the role of quantitative skills in the work of a management accountant. The study finds that quantitative skills are seen by both employers and accounting educators as contributing to the portfolio of skills required by management accountants. Also, they give a rigour to the examination process that is seen as a challenging ‘rite of passage’ into the profession. It is concluded that knowledge and understanding of the range of quantitative techniques available to organizations is a powerful differentiator for the accounting profession, even if the occasions upon which accountants are required to draw upon much of that knowledge are few and far between.     

News from the U.S. and Japan: Which moves the yen/dollar exchange rate?

Intra-daily movements in the yen/dollar exchange rate are examined in four non-overlapping segments within each business day from January 1980 to September 1985. The results indicate that the dollar tended to appreciate in the New York segment and depreciate in the European segment. In three of the four subsamples considered, the Tokyo segment made virtually no contribution to annual yen/dollar rate movements. The volatility of the exchange rate also differed across markets. Finally, in examining the relative effects of news from the U.S. and Japan explicitly, U.S. money announcement surprises had the most consistent effects.     

Bank size and macroeconomic shock transmission: Does the credit channel operate through large or small banks?

In this paper, I use U.S. call report data to construct a larger panel dataset with bank-level observations. I find that larger banks' lending is considerably more sensitive to the strength of their borrowers' and their own balance sheets compared to smaller banks and that the sensitivities to borrower balance sheets are larger in magnitude compared to lender balance sheets. When I incorporate various macroeconomic shocks (identified by an estimated DSGE model) into the empirical model, I similarly find that the transmission of shocks to the real economy operates mostly through large bank lending and borrower balance sheets.