Facts & figures

The National Audit Office are emerging as a force for change in management reform in the Civil Service. Their pivotal position, poised between Whitehall and Westminster, gives them a responsibility for ensuring that change is informed by the need to retain public support. The Office's validation is important and provides central government with an incentive to get things right.     

Banking System Bailout-Scandinavian Style

During the Scandinavian banking crisis in the early 1990s, Norway and Sweden chose somewhat different routes to crisis resolution, though both involved government intervention and both proved effective. The Norwegian government injected a hybrid debt-equity form of capital into the largest commercial bank, though only after first extinguishing old equity claims. The Swedish government issued a system-wide debt guarantee and allowed shareholders to maintain their equity stakes, provided they also contributed new equity capital to the banks. In the (single) case where equityholders refused to participate, the government took over the bank and divided it into a “good” and “bad” part, with the latter holding the non-performing loans. The resolution of banking system problems in Scandinavia provides a useful precedent for the recent “bailout” of the U.S. banking system, which, after some initial trial and errors, also involved government ownership of shares in financial institutions. As the author notes in closing, the Scandinavian experience is also relevant for addressing the question of how the U.S. government, having effectively become “owner of last resort” in key financial institutions, should handle its controlling equity stakes.     

Government accountability and performance measurement

This paper studies accountability structures and strategy in the Province of Alberta, Canada. The Alberta government has presented performance measurement and reporting as an accountability technology, but a theoretically informed analysis suggests that performance measurement could be understood otherwise. Argyris’s notion of “espoused theory" vs. “theory-in-use" is used to illuminate Latour’s analysis of Plato’s Gorgias Dialogues and the combination is applied to highlight possible unintended consequences of the use of scientific managerialist techniques in the public sector. By mapping elitism of knowledge and elitism of special position (Right and Might) onto the Alberta experience, we make visible techniques that distance Albertans from their government. Questionably designed survey instruments have produced data interpreted by government as meaning Albertans are satisfied with government’s heritage efforts. Publication of such results has the effect of telling voters that they are happy with what they have, instead of asking the people what they want.     

Should Non-Financial Performance Information be Audited? The Case of Public Service Agreements in UK Government

A growing level of controversy surrounds the right of the UK National Audit Office (NAO) to audit public service agreements (PSAs) – documents which detail the performance, against targets, of central government departments. The NAO has not been granted a statutory role, although an independent official review of accountability and audit in UK central government has recently concluded that the external validation of departmental information systems is a crucial first step towards validation of key published data. In the context of growing academic concern over the scale and achievements of (public) audit, it is pertinent to ask whether such a potential extension in the rights and scope of the NAO's audit work is necessary or likely to enhance public accountability and improve the performance of government departments and audit bodies.     

Should Non‐Financial Performance Information be Audited? The Case ofPublic Service Agreements in UK Government

A growing level of controversy surrounds the right of the UK National Audit Office (NAO) to audit public service agreements (PSAs) – documents which detail the performance, against targets, of central government departments. The NAO has not been granted a statutory role, although an independent official review of accountability and audit in UK central government has recently concluded that the external validation of departmental information systems is a crucial first step towards validation of key published data. In the context of growing academic concern over the scale and achievements of (public) audit, it is pertinent to ask whether such a potential extension in the rights and scope of the NAO's audit work is necessary or likely to enhance public accountability and improve the performance of government departments and audit bodies.     

Jurisdictional Competition Between Private and Public Sector Auditors:The Case of the Danish Certified Public Sector Auditor Qualification

Abstract: This paper explores the apparent paradox that while public sector auditors have become more powerful by claiming performance auditing expertise and linking this to New Public Management reforms, the same reforms have provided an opening for competition between private and public sector auditors. In Denmark, the competitive relation has led to a jurisdictional dispute between public and private sector auditors in which the former have developed a special qualification for public sector auditors. The paper analyses the development of this qualification using Abbott's (1988) theory of the system of professions, thus focusing on how the involved groups have attempted to build networks of support for their competing jurisdictional claims of expertise. The case contributes to knowledge about the potential for development of a distinct public sector auditor identity. The case suggests that to develop such an identity and gain professional recognition, public sector auditors need to convince parliaments, standard‐setting bodies and universities that a public sector auditing qualification serves as a solution to some of their problems, too.     

Board 3.0: What the Private‐Equity Governance Model Can Offer Public Companies∗

The authors view board structures as an adaptive institution that responds to the key challenges faced by public companies: helping management solve the problems of production and organization of large‐scale enterprise; limiting managerial agency costs; serving as a delegated monitor of the firm's compliance obligations; and responding to the governance environment of changing shareholder ownership patterns. U.S. company board structures are shown to have evolved over time, often through discontinuous lurches, as particular functions have waxed and waned in importance. This article is part of a larger project that traces two iterations of the public company board, what the authors call Board 1.0 (the “advisory board”) and Board 2.0 (the “monitoring board”). The authors argue in particular that Board 2.0, as embedded in both current practice and regulation, now fails the functional fit test for many companies. First, it does not scale to match the dramatic increase in the size and complexity of many modern public corporations. Second, at a time of reconcentrated ownership achieved through institutional investors and increased activism, it does not have the expertise and commitment needed to resolve the tension between managerial or market myopia, or “short‐termism,” and managerial “hyperopia.” This article holds out an optional alternative, Board 3.0, which would bring to the public company board some strategies used by private equity firms for their portfolio company boards. Such “Portco” boards consist of directors who are “thickly informed,” “heavily resourced,” and “intensely interested.” Bringing such “empowered directors” to public company boards could facilitate evolution of the public company board model in response to dramatic changes in the corporate business environment. The authors also suggest possible routes for implementing Board 3.0, including the enlisting of PE firms as “relational investors” that would have both capacity and incentives to engineer changes in board structure.     

“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响——基于“一带一路”倡议准自然实验的证据

本文基于“一带一路”倡议这一准自然实验,使用双重差分法,以中国2007-2017年A股上市企业为样本,实证检验了“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响。研究发现,参与“一带一路”倡议的企业与未参与的企业相比,融资约束水平有所上升。该效应对处于重点对接省份的参与企业可能更为明显。与国有企业相比,参与“一带一路”倡议的私人企业的融资约束有所上升,而且处在重点对接行业和省份的参与“一带一路”倡议的民营企业融资约束更有可能上升。从机制上看,由于观察周期尚短和其它因素的限制,企业参与“一带一路”倡议以后,其在信贷资源获取、利润率和生产率等方面还未体现出优势来。从政策来讲,为更好地支持国家的“一带一路”倡议,需要进一步拓宽思路对企业形成更有效的金融支持,以提高“一带一路”建设的可持续性。     

On the Economics of Postassessments in Insurance Guaranty Funds: A Stakeholders’ Perspective

This article proposes a model that suggests there are contagion effects among members of an insurance guaranty fund when postassessments are charged to all other insurers upon the failure of a member company. Indeed, these extraordinary payments are shown to increase the default rate of other firms in the industry, ultimately lowering the value of corporate claims as well as government tax claims. The model is also used to examine the efficiency of different recoupment mechanisms (both existing and new) used by regulators and insurers to potentially reduce these contagion effects. Analysis allows us to stipulate the conditions under which a “tax carryforward” provision could be more efficient than the usual recoupment mechanisms known as “premium rate surcharge” and “premium tax credit.”     

Did public risk perspectives of mad cow disease reflect media representations and actual outcomes?

The first confirmed Canadian case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was reported to the general public on 20 May 2003 and received considerable media coverage. A random‐digit dialled telephone survey of 1207 people in Alberta, Canada, was conducted in spring 2007 to better understand public perspectives on the resulting economic concerns and effects on farming. Comparisons to other risk events and concerns about the overall risk were also examined. Respondents acknowledged BSE to be an economic risk, especially to cattle producers. Health risks were of little concern, especially in comparison to other relevant risk events such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the BSE crisis in Britain. However, the risk of BSE was perceived as more dangerous should a domestically attributed case of variant Creutzfeldt‐Jakob disease (vCJD) (the human form of the disease) occur. The social amplification of risk framework (SARF) was extended to demonstrate that the discovery of BSE in Alberta led to neither an amplification nor attenuation of risk. Rather, risk management strategies employed in Alberta led to a mirroring of media representations and public perceptions of the risk. This unusual situation is in part due to the social and cultural context of the discovery of BSE in Alberta, including the history and pride of beef production in Alberta, how the risk was anchored, and a trust in government fostered by the media. This research also demonstrated how the application and interpretation of SARF is dependent on the comparative value used to assess whether amplification or attenuation has occurred.     

Calculating education spending need, 1976–82

The Welsh Office has proposed that local government in Wales be restructured to produce a system of 20 unitary authorities based on the boundaries of the existing 37 district councils. All eight of the Welsh county councils will be abolished. The consultation paper on reform in Wales claims that a single tier of local government has four main advantages: greater public accountability; the removal of friction between counties and districts; better service co‐ordination; and enhanced efficiency. The consultation paper contains neither reasoned arguments nor empirical evidence to substantiate these claims. A better approach to local government reform would enable diverse local circumstances and preferences to be reflected in diverse local structures.     

“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响——基于“一带一路”倡议准自然实验的证据

本文基于“一带一路”倡议这一准自然实验,使用双重差分法,以中国2007-2017年A股上市企业为样本,实证检验了“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响。研究发现,参与“一带一路”倡议的企业与未参与的企业相比,融资约束水平有所上升。该效应对处于重点对接省份的参与企业可能更为明显。与国有企业相比,参与“一带一路”倡议的私人企业的融资约束有所上升,而且处在重点对接行业和省份的参与“一带一路”倡议的民营企业融资约束更有可能上升。从机制上看,由于观察周期尚短和其它因素的限制,企业参与“一带一路”倡议以后,其在信贷资源获取、利润率和生产率等方面还未体现出优势来。从政策来讲,为更好地支持国家的“一带一路”倡议,需要进一步拓宽思路对企业形成更有效的金融支持,以提高“一带一路”建设的可持续性。     

Morgan Stanley Roundtable on Private Equity and Its Import for Public Companies

The role of private equity in global capital markets appears to be expanding at an extraordinary rate. Morgan Stanley estimates that there are now some 2,700 private equity funds that either have raised, or are in the process of raising, a total of $500 billion. With this abundance of available equity capital, the willingness of private equity firms to participate in “club” deals, and the leverage that can be put on top of the equity, private equity buyers now appear able and willing to pay higher prices for assets than ever before. And thanks in part to this new purchasing power, private equity transactions reportedly account for a quarter of all global M&A activity as well as a third of the high yield and IPO markets. The stock of capital now devoted to private equity reflects the demonstrated ability of at least the most reputable buyout firms to produce consistently high rates of returns for their limited partners. Although a talent for identifying and purchasing undervalued assets may be part of the story, the ability to produce such returns on a consistent basis implies an ability to add value, to improve the performance of the operating companies they invest in and control. And in this round‐table, a small group of academics and practitioners address two main questions: How does private equity add value? And are there lessons for public companies in the success of private companies? According to the panelists, the answer to the first question appears to have changed somewhat over time. The consensus was that most of the value added by the LBO firms of the‘80s was created during the initial structuring of the deals, a process described by Steve Kaplan as “financial and governance engineering,” which includes not only aggressive use of leverage and powerful equity incentives for operating managements, but active oversight by a small, intensely interested board of directors. In the past ten years, however, these standard LBO features have been complemented by increased attention to “operational engineering,” to the point where today's buyout firms feel obligated, like classic venture capitalists, to acquire and tout their own operating expertise. In response to the second of the two questions, Michael Jensen argues that much of the approach and benefits of private equity‐particularly the adjustments of financial policies and stronger managerial incentives‐can be replicated by public companies. And although some of these benefits have already been realized, much more remains to be done. Perhaps the biggest challenge, however, is finding a way to transfer to public companies the board‐level expertise, incentives, and degree of engagement that characterize companies run by private equity investors.     

Strategy,political regulation and management control in the public sector: Institutional and critical perspectives

This paper mobilizes institutional and critical theories in examining how evolving management control practices, inspired by the balanced scorecard, mediated the process of strategy formation in a Swedish central government agency. Particular attention is paid to how this process was conditioned by external, political regulation of the organization. Contrary to popular conceptions of strategy and strategic management as emerging alternatives to political regulation in the public sector, the study shows how the meaning of the notion of strategy became intricately intertwined with government regulation. Whilst this affirms the tendency of organizations to comply with institutional pressures exerted by dominant constituencies, the analysis also shows how the unfolding strategy discourse gradually narrowed the meaning of the notion of strategy permeating the organization. The extension of an institutional perspective to incorporate more critical insights highlights how this process fostered some “unintended” consequences with a detrimental impact on organizational practices aimed at achieving broader social objectives. In so doing, I draw attention to how the unobtrusive power of evolving strategy discourses conditions conceptions of organizational performance and relevant constituent interests. The implications for future management accounting research combining institutional and critical theories are discussed.     

Experts and quacks

What happens when “type” is endogenous in a reputational setting? Here, customers cannot tell “experts” from imitative “quacks,” but gain information through repeated interaction. Firm incentives to invest in expertise vary nonmonotonically in how tolerant customers are of bad outcomes; more tolerant customers are both more forgiving, making expertise less necessary, and longer tenured, increasing the value of retaining them. In equilibrium, the proportion of expert firms is bounded away from one; some quacks are necessary to keep incentives of experts in line. The fraction of experts is decreasing in customers' switching costs and the relative cost of expertise over quackery.     

重大公共卫生危机下的健康保险应对研究

公共卫生危机对经济的影响较大,21世纪以来,面对频发的重大公共卫生危机,健康保险业如何通过科技赋能,有效参与到公共卫生安全体系建设中亟待研究对策。通过数据比较分析法、模型构建法,分析了我国商业健康保险业在防控重大疫情期间的作为、短板、机遇和挑战,并基于健康保险参与公共卫生安全体系建设的国际经验和保险科技的发展,提出了我国健康保险业应对重大公共卫生危机的一系列政策建议,以便完善现有公共卫生安全体系,助推"健康中国战略"和"可持续发展战略"的实现。     

“原罪”嫌疑、制度环境与民营企业慈善捐赠

2018年11月1日,习近平同志在民营企业座谈会上的讲话指出,要落实按照罪刑法定、疑罪从无的原则,切实保护民营企业家的人身和财产安全,这是因为"原罪"嫌疑是中国民营企业发展史上无法回避的一个重要问题,长期使得企业家面临企业合法性地位能否获得政府与社会公众认可的担忧,产生了诸多的微观经济后果。本文以2004-2016年间中国A股民营上市公司作为研究样本,根据企业初始产权获取过程中是否涉及公有产权到私有产权的转变作为对民营企业"原罪"嫌疑的度量,实证检验了"原罪"嫌疑是否以及如何影响民营企业的慈善捐赠行为。结果发现,由于"原罪"嫌疑所引致的民营企业合法性得不到正式认可与保护的威胁,背负"原罪"嫌疑的民营企业有动机通过慈善捐赠来讨好政府和社会公众以便降低这种威胁,而且这一正向影响关系随着企业所在省市的制度环境的完善而减弱。进一步本文还发现,"原罪"嫌疑对民营企业慈善捐赠水平的正向影响关系在不存在政治联系的企业以及实际控制人登上富豪榜后表现得更为明显。     

Financial Intermediary Versus Production Approach to Efficiency of Marketing Distribution Systems and Organizational Structure of Insurance Companies

An examination of the efficiency of the marketing distribution channel and organizational structure for insurance companies is presented from a framework that views the insurer as a financial intermediary rather than as a “production entity” which produces “value added” through loss payments. Within this financial intermediary approach, solvency can be a primary concern for regulators of insurance companies, claims‐paying ability can be a primary concern for policyholders, and return on investment can be a primary concern for investors. These three variables (solvency, financial return, and claims‐paying ability) are considered as outputs of the insurance firm. The financial intermediary approach acknowledges that interests potentially conflict, and the strategic decision makers for the firm must balance one concern versus another when managing the insurance company. Accordingly, we investigate the efficiency of insurance companies using data envelopment analysis (DEA) having as insurer output an appropriately selected (for the firm under investigation) combination of solvency, claims‐paying ability, and return on investment as outputs. These efficiency evaluations are further examined to study stock versus mutual form of organizational structure and agency versus direct marketing arrangements, which are examined separately and in combination. Comparisons with the “value‐added” or “production” approach to insurer efficiency are presented. A new DEA approach and interpretation is also presented.