Commentary on Parker: Groundhog Day and optimism

This paper seeks to provide a supportive commentary to the paper by Lee Parker that assesses the deliverables and relevance of qualitative accounting research. This commentary on Parker's work focuses more narrowly than Parker and concentrates on the differences between qualitative research and approaches adopting a positivistic or normative perspective and less on the exemplars in the management accounting literature. The commentary will seek to explore these differences by reverting to a broader social science literature. The commentary will argue for recognising the complementarity of different research approaches – recognising difference and but recognising the strengths of both; bringing their understandings together when it helps to do so, but not seeking to combine them and ignore their difference roots; not seeking to privilege any approach over any other apart from recognising that different questions need different approaches to answer them. At the latter end of this commentary I offer some solutions that might be considered in relation to the building of a body of knowledge, using the ideas of middle range thinking. Finally I develop some suggestions to meet for Parker's call for us to make efforts to communicate more broadly and argue for the academic accounting community to consider interdisciplinary engagement with the arts.     

网络空间对抗态势严峻和应对策略

网络空间(Cyberspace)已经成为国家重大信息基础设施。因网络空间出现安全问题而造成的损失和影响将直接威胁国家的发展和安危。国家领导人曾指出:一定要把握信息化的发展方向,维护国家在网络空间的安全和利益,成为信息时代的重大战略课题。因此,维护网络空间的安全保密将是保护国家信息化健康发展和保卫国家安全的重要使命。     

CEO optimism and incentive compensation

I study the effect of chief executive officer (CEO) optimism on CEO compensation. Using data on compensation in US firms, I provide evidence that CEOs whose option exercise behavior and earnings forecasts are indicative of optimistic beliefs receive smaller stock option grants, fewer bonus payments, and less total compensation than their peers. These findings add to our understanding of the interplay between managerial biases and remuneration and show how sophisticated principals can take advantage of optimistic agents by appropriately adjusting their compensation contracts.     

CEO optimism and forced turnover

We show theoretically that optimism can lead a risk-averse Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to choose the first-best investment level that maximizes shareholder value. Optimism below (above) the interior optimum leads the CEO to underinvest (overinvest). Hence, if boards of directors act in the interests of shareholders, CEOs with relatively low or high optimism face a higher probability of forced turnover than moderately optimistic CEOs face. Using a large sample of turnovers, we find strong empirical support for this prediction. The results are consistent with the view that there is an interior optimum level of managerial optimism that maximizes firm value.     

Distress risk puzzle and analyst forecast optimism

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - A general consensus in the literature is that financial analysts make optimistic forecasts. That is, they tend to underreact to negative but...     

Predictors of unrealistic optimism: a study of Norwegian risk takers

In areas of voluntary risk behaviour, as with other kinds of risk, people tend to be overly optimistic regarding not being injured. A study of risk perception and causal explanations of injury assessments was conducted on 199 respondents from three different sub‐groups in Norway; skydivers (n?=?88), fire fighters (n?=?73) and soldiers (n?=?38). Unrealistic optimism was studied by means of four demographic variables: the background of the subject (sub‐sample), gender, age, and education. In addition, three predictors of unrealistic optimism were taken into account—safety attitudes, control, and anxiety. These predictors were included in an Analysis of Linear Structural Relationship (LISREL) analysis. The results showed that optimism differed between the sub‐groups, and that different factors influenced risk perception depending on the group and depending on whether the assessment was of oneself or of others. These findings offers additional information that will help explain the inconsistent findings in the current literature of unrealistic optimism. Of the predictors investigated, safety attitudes were found to be the most important, which may be because respondents preoccupied with safety are more aware of potential dangers and thereby less optimistic.     

Performance management and organizational strategy: How to design systems that meet the needs of confrontation strategy firms

The link between organizational strategy and performance management system design has been examined in numerous studies. Invariably, strategy is conceptualized using archetypes developed in the 1970s and 1980s. Scholars have increasingly questioned the wisdom of relying on strategic archetypes that are plainly dated and conspicuously disconnected from the possibility of firms competing head-to-head, not out of choice but out of necessity. Cooper (1995) calls such a situation the undertaking of a confrontation strategy. Using an exploratory research design, this paper draws on nine qualitative case studies to examine how performance management systems are designed to meet and support the implementation of a confrontation strategy. Initially six firms, spanning a variety of what were expected to be mature, highly competitive industries likely to feature confrontation strategies, were recruited for participation. This initial study was then followed by a more concentrated examination of one particular industry: the banking industry. Findings from the total case study sample of nine firms lead to the presentation of an original table contrasting the unique performance management system designs associated with the three distinct strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and confrontation. In particular, and in contrast to firms pursuing cost leadership or differentiation strategies, firms with confrontation strategies are likely to feature collaborative organizational cultures, lean organizational structures, and training and development programs that focus on developing empowered, multi-skilled teams of self-governing and coordinating employees. The exploratory intent of the paper, and thus its reliance on a small sample size of nine organizations, may limit the generalizability of the paper’s findings. In spite of this limitation, the findings offer opportunities for researchers to move beyond the exploratory approach presently adopted and empirically test the confrontation strategy and performance management system linkages proposed. Additionally, practitioners are likely to benefit from a clearer understanding of the type of performance management system design needed to support confrontation strategies.     

我国稀土定价话语权与产业发展

稀土元素在国防、信息技术、新材料和节能环保产业具有重要的不可替代的用途,因而被称作“工业维生素”,是国家的战略资源.我国是稀土资源大国,国外稀土需求量的90％以上需要从中国进口,但中国在稀土定价上话语权缺失,“稀土卖成土价钱”,导致了国家宝贵资源的廉价流失、稀土产业发展的不可持续性和一系列的资源环境问题.分析了稀土定价话语权缺失的原因,提出了提高产业集中度、增加产品附加值、建立稀土战略储备制度、建立稀土期货市场等促进稀土产业健康可持续发展的若干对策.     

内蒙古稀土产业集群化成长的要素及其培育途径

产业集群以其在拉动区域经济增长中的重要作用而受到国内外的广泛关注。当前,内蒙古稀土产业集群发展还处于雏形阶段,发展总体形势良好,但也面临着一些困难和问题,可通过以下途径加快培育西部稀土产业集群：培育核心企业是加快西部稀土产业集群形成与发展的关键;进一步完善多元化的人才聚集和培养机制;构建西部稀土产业集群化的创新网络体系;建立加快稀土企业发展的金融支撑体系;有效发挥政府在产业集群发展中的公共服务功能。     

The euro: The logic and inevitability of UK adoption

A competitive, smoothly functioning financial system is widely accepted as a prerequisite for realising an economy's growth potential. Modern growth theories have broadened their focus beyond the rate of interest as the means of equilibrating savings and investment to the contribution that efficiently operating financial markets make to underlying growth rates. The successful introduction of the euro marks an historic and significant step towards the achievement of a competitive, smoothly functioning pan-European integrated financial system. The elimination nominal currency risk for participants and reduced transaction costs are only the start of a continuing dynamic process that is steadily reducing asymmetries and increasing contestability. More generally a single currency and a smoothly functioning pan-European financial system are necessary counterparts to a single EU market in goods, services, labour and financial capital. This paper advances the argument that the integration of the EU's financial markets should be viewed as part of a longer-term process of economic and political integration in Europe. The UK is unable to stop this trend and UK business in general, and the UK financial markets in particular, would be wise to acknowledge these forces and to start to work with them. Marketing UK financial services with a view to UK membership of EMU would not only align marketing with the flow of history, but also it offers the prospects of a greater longer-term return.     

The CARD Act and Young Borrowers: The Effects and the Affected

We study a new law that restricts credit to individuals under age 21. We first use a difference‐in‐difference approach to estimate the effect of the law on credit card availability. Following the passage of the law, individuals under age 21 are 8 percentage points (15%) less likely to have a credit card, have fewer cards, and, conditional on having a card at all, are 35% more likely to have a cosigned card. We then use data from before the passage of the law to identify the characteristics of those individuals most likely to be affected by the Act.     

The CF and Accounting Standards: The Persistence of Discrepancies

The conceptual framework (CF) has introduced a set of ideals and broad criteria for financial reporting focusing on servicing users' information needs. In this article, each concepts statement is considered, in turn, and its consistency with selected accounting standards examined. Particular attention is paid to accounting standards issued for the first time, or in a revised form, subsequent to the release of the concepts statements. It is found that many standards have provisions that are at odds with the CF. These inconsistencies come as no surprise. The CF is incomplete; the issue of measurement remains unresolved, leaving ambiguity in the definitions of concepts such as revenue. The CF project has remained unfinished while standard setters have given priority to other tasks, such as international harmonization, in resolving contemporary financial reporting issues.     

The Friedman rule: Old and new

In overlapping generations models, money growth creates intergenerational wealth effects and leads to the breakdown of the Friedman rule; the rule can be restored via lump-sum tax and transfers that neutralize these wealth transfers. Additionally, and in contrast to money-in-the-utility-function models, the Friedman rule is not the unique first-best solution in cash-in-advance-constraint models of money: a continuum of combinations of money growth rates and consumption taxes implement the first-best allocation. This paper traces through the intellectual origins of the first (old) result, which was recently restated in Bhattacharya, et al. [2005. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, and the inflation tax: equivalence results. Macroeconomic Dynamics 7, 647-669.] and formally demonstrates the second (new) result.     

Around and Around: The Expectations Hypothesis

We show how to construct models of the term structure of interest rates in which the expectations hypothesis holds. McCulloch (1993) presents such a model, thereby contradicting an assertion by Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1981), but his example is Gaussian and falls outside the class of finite-dimensional Markovian models. We generalize McCulloch's model in three ways: (i) We provide an arbitrage-free characterization of the unbiased expectations hypothesis in terms of forward rates; (ii) we extend this characterization to a whole class of expectations hypotheses; and (iii) we show how to construct finite-dimensional Markovian and non-Gaussian examples.     

全球经济与金融：复苏曙光初现——“当前世界经济形势评估和预测”研讨会综述

2003年是全球经济发展动荡起伏趋于激烈的一年。近日,就如何评估当前和今后的全球经济形势和金融发展变革,上海国际问题研究所召开了“当前世界经济形势评估和预测”研讨会,来自上海的十几位专家学者以及新闻媒体参加了会议。与会专家围绕美、日、欧、俄和东亚经济形势及未来趋势、当前国际金融形势等问题展开了热烈讨论,现将讨论的主要观点综述如下:     

The Information Revolution and Small Business Lending: The Missing Evidence

This paper provides empirical confirmation for Petersen and Rajan??s (J Finance 57:2533?C2570, 2002) widely accepted conjecture that information technology was the primary driver of the observed increase in small business borrower-lender distances in the U.S. in recent years. Using a different data source for small business loans, we show that annual increases in borrower-lender distances were slow and steady prior to 1993 (the end point in Petersen and Rajan??s data) but accelerated rapidly after that. Importantly, we are able to assign at least half of this acceleration to the adoption of credit scoring technologies by the lending banks. Our tests also reveal strong statistical associations between lending distances and borrower characteristics, lender characteristics, market conditions, regulatory constraints, moral hazard incentives, and principal-agent incentives.     

中国贫富差距合理边界——《在发展中控制贫富差距扩大》研究报告之三

20%我国目前的基尼系数为0.45,占总人口20%的最贫困人口仅占全部收入和消费份额的4.7%,而占人口20%的最富裕人口占全部收入和消费份额却高达50%以上,财富正在以1.83%的年平均增长速度向少数富人集中。