Quantile-locating functions and the distance between the mean and quantiles

Given a random variable X with finite mean, for each 0 < p < 1, a new sharp bound is found on the distance between a p -quantile of X and its mean in terms of the central absolute first moment of X . The new bounds strengthen the fact that the mean of X is within one standard deviation of any of its medians, as well as a recent quantile-generalization of this fact by O'Cinneide.     

Savings and the Budget

The fall in the personal sector savings ratio to a record low last year has been a major factor behind the rapid growth of domestic demand in the past two years and the associated deterioration in the current account. It is also a major uncertainty in the Chancellor's Budget judgement. Existing econometric relationships for the consumption function have failed to predict the fall in personal savings over the past few years. Possible explanations include statistical error, the effects of financial deregulation, the housing boom, expectations of higher growth in incomes, and demographic influences. In this Viewpoint, we report on a new consumption function that successfully explains the decline in savings. It provides evidence of a major demographic influence resulting from the decline in the proportion of the population in the 45–64 age cohort, the main savers in society. Subsidiary effects arise from the boom in house prices, and statistical mis-measurement. The equation predicts an appreciable revival of savings over the next few years as the 45–64 age cohort grows again. These shifts in demographic structure reflect the after-effects of the Second World War. This new evidence suggests that the Chancellor has done quite enough to ensure a slowdown in consumption, and that he would be ill-advised to heed calls for special measures to boost savings. By contrast, well conceived tax changes that remove microeconomic distortions in the tax system (perhaps moving in the direction of an expenditure tax) would improve the tax structure, and may well increase the scope for tax cuts in future budgets. Our new consumption function also lends weight to the Chancellor's argument that the current account deficit is not a source of concern, insofar as it arises from a shift in savings associated with demographic changes that will be reversed in due course.     

Activity-based techniques and the death of the beancounter

In a study of eleven medium and large sized companies we found clear evidence that management accountants were seen by operational managers as ‘beancounters’. This term has become common in the literature in recent years and we define a beancounter as, ‘an accountant who produces financial information which is regarded as of little use in efficiently running the business and, as a result, its production has become an end in itself.’ Furthermore many management accountants recognized this image. All of the companies had attempted to implement activity-based techniques and this process had led to a substantial improvement in the beancounter image. We propose three scenarios for the future of activity-based techniques and the management accountants' image as a beancounter. These are based on our understanding of the history of management accounting and trends that have been visible in recent years. Further we suggest the most likely contingent variables which may lead to one or other of the scenarios becoming reality. Some of the scenarios are more likely to occur in the short or medium term, whereas others are long term possibilities. We conclude with our own view on the likely future for activity-based techniques, suggesting that there is a promising future for these techniques in the medium term.     

探索企业“党工共建”有效途径

“党工共建”对于构建和谐企业,促进安全生产和经济效益双赢有着重要的作用。文章从党建带工建,共建促双赢,“党建带工建”是搞好工会组织建设的关键,“工建促党建”是企业党组织和工会建设需要等方面,对广西桂冠大化水力发电总厂“党工共建”工作进行阐述,并从强化领导,从责任上落实“党工共建”;加深认识,在思想和行动上实现“党工共建”;加强制度建设,从制度规范上保证“党工共建”;理顺劳动关系,从劳动关系上构造工建服务党建;强化人文环境,彰显“党工共建”互动发展等5个途径进行探索。     

Income: the real and the incomparable

The main propositions of this paper are: inter-temporal and interspatial comparisons lose meaning when the arrays of goods and services being priced are too dissimilar; the composition and pricing of GDP are a function of income distribution; income tends to circulate among persons of broadly similar wealth and culture; a significant part of what is recorded as final household expenditure is intermediate in nature; public expenditure is intrinsically intermediate, and poses a variety of conceptual difficulties. Growth is associated with changes which undermine the validity of its measurement.     

Laissez-faire and the institutions of the free market

The absence of an adequate institutional structure explains why entrepreneurial capitalism did not automatically follow the collapse of central planning in the 1990s. It is a necessary function of a liberal state to provide a framework for the enforcement of private contractual terms. Beyond that basic need, other regulatory structures tend to emerge spontaneously through the force of mutual advantage and the test of social competence. In particular, institutions such as banking, the law, accountancy, insurance etc. exist to minimise the transactions costs which are inherent in a market economy.     

公司盈余管理及其防范的研究与分析

盈余管理是经营者运用会计手段或安排交易来改变财务报告以误导利益相关者对公司业绩的理解或者影响以报告会计数字为基础的合约的结果(1999)。本文从实践中盈余管理的动机、手段等对盈余管理进行分析和研究,从而提出对公司盈余管理的识别方法及防范措施。     

Monopoly and the problem of the economists

By any measure economists have played increasingly prominent roles in antitrust policy making, at least since the early 1970s. Indeed, the approach to the analysis of public policy toward business pioneered by Chicago school economists dominates the academic literature nowadays. According to the Chicago school's adherents, their insistence that antitrust be examined through the lens of price theory should have produced discernably ‘better’ (read pro-consumer) laws and ‘better’ law enforcement. This paper contends that economists have in fact not had a positive influence on antitrust policy, but have instead actively contributed to its use as a way of subverting competitive market forces.     

公民身份号码与组织机构代码之比较分析和研究

在我国,公民身份号码是公民的身份标识,组织机构代码是组织机构的统一身份标识。文章对两者的异同之处进行了比较分析和研究。两者分属不同领域,既存在差异,也有许多相似之处,作为国家信息化工作中的最基本数据,在现代管理体系中同处于重要的基础性地位。     

论资产负债项目的性质与暂时性差异的形成

资产负债项目的性质对其暂时性差异的形成有着直接的影响。一般而言,货币性资产、负债项目不形成暂时性差异,而非货币性项目则有可能形成暂时性差异。在有些情况下,这一结论似乎并不成立,如应收账款等项目有时也会产生暂时性差异,事实上,该资产项目此时已不再是严格意义上的货币性项目。弄清这一规律,不论在理论上还是在实践中均有重要意义。     

论构建与实施高校创业教育体系

对大学生进行创业能力培养与教育,作为高等教育发展史上一种新的教育理念,是知识经济时代培养大学生创业精神和创造能力的需要,是伴随社会和经济结构调整人才需求变化的需要。因此,开展创业教育是顺应时代的要求,作为高等学校,理所当然地要探寻创业教育的途径和方法,通过构建完善的创业教育体系来培养学生的创业意识和创业能力。     

关于计算机审计面临的问题与对策

计算机技术在审计工作中的应用,是现代审计工作方式变化的一次飞跃,与传统审计方式相比,它在许多方面发挥出了巨大的优势。但由于计算机审计在实践中应用时间较短,在实际应用中出现的许多问题和不足。本文将从法律角度进行研究,并提出政策建议。     

The Symbiosis of the Urban and the Political

Historically, the urban was the condition of possibility for the political, but the symbiosis of the two has been concealed by the rise of the state and the concomitant development of the social sciences. The effort to recover the connection by denoting a separate domain of ‘urban politics’ is self‐defeating, because it re‐instantiates an ontology of the political that consigns the urban to the domain of ‘low’ politics. The dominant ontology suggests that ‘high’ politics — the most serious politics or politics proper — is always in the domain of states and empires, and that everything else is subject to it. This view is constantly reaffirmed by the political theory that underpins the state system and the modern social sciences. Nevertheless, a different ontology of the political is always already implicit in the concept of the city, understood as a local phenomenon and a global way of life. To see the political through the city is to notice how proximate diversity stimulates self‐organization and self‐government, generates politics in and between authorities in different registers, and defers the sovereignty claims it produces. On this view, the urban is neither high nor low, but is instead the very form of the political, encompassing states and empires as much as anything else.     

路桥施工管理存在的问题及对策

路桥设施是公路交通运输的重要环节,关系到国家经济的大流通。文章概述了路桥施工项目管理的定义,探讨了路桥施工管理存在的问题,并提出加强路桥施工管理的对策,以期为广大路桥施工组织管理人员提供借鉴和参考。     

Beliefs About the Rich, the Poor and the Taxes They Pay

Abstract . Beliefs about tax burdens are frequently distorted in the direction of the believer's economic self-interest, according to a study of 300 White women in the Boston Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, of 50 of their husbands in a matched pairs analysis and of 25 Black women. Socioeconomic status is a consistently stronger predictor of the federal tax burden than is ideology, but neither is effective. The federal income tax component of the total tax burden is consistently overestimated. But there is a general tendency to underestimate the total tax burden of the poor.     

Britain, the EU and the global economy

Britain should retain a global outlook in its political and economic affairs. Whilst recognising her proximity to and trade relations with Europe, it is argued that in order to compete on the world stage Britain should adopt a more flexible economy along American lines as a contrast to the European model. Importantly, this means retaining economic and political sovereignty.     

路桥施工管理存在的问题及对策

路桥设施是公路交通运输的重要环节,关系到国家经济的大流通。文章概述了路桥施工项目管理的定义,探讨了路桥施工管理存在的问题,并提出加强路桥施工管理的对策,以期为广大路桥施工组织管理人员提供借鉴和参考。     

The true and fair view and the drafting of the Fourth Directive

The article reviews the drafting of the Fourth Directive with a view to analysing the mechanisms whereby the overriding requirement that accounts should provide a true and fair view of the state of affairs of a company was introduced into the second draft of the directive. It examines the published comments from the expert group which wrote the initial discussion document and from the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee. It concludes that, since the initial concept was that the Directive should combine elements from existing member state statutes rather than create an independent approach, it should be expected that UK and Irish law would have an influence once these countries became members. There is, however, evidence that some accountants in the UK placed emphasis on the true and fair override as a means of escaping what they saw as the strictures of the Fourth Directive.     

Total Reward and pensions in the UK in the public and private sectors

Recent controversy has surrounded the relative value of public and private sector remuneration. We propose a comprehensive measure of Total Reward (TR) which includes not just pay, but pensions and other ‘benefits in kind’, evaluate it as the present value of the sum of all these payments over the lifetime and compare it for the highly educated in the UK public and private sectors. Our results suggest that TR is broadly equalised over the lifecycle for highly educated men while highly educated women have a clear TR advantage in the public sector by the end of their career. We suggest that the current controversy over public–private sector pension differentials and the perennial issues of public/private sector pay gaps requires a lifetime perspective and that the concept of TR is appropriate.     

Escalation effects and the player draft in the AFL

This study investigates escalation effects in the Australian Football League (AFL). We use a sample of players selected in the AFL player draft (National Draft) between 1986 and 2002, and test for escalation effects by examining whether a player's draft order affects his subsequent utilisation by the club to which he was drafted. Utilisation is represented with measures of games played and tenure. Limited evidence of an escalation effect is found. Any relation between a player's draft order and his games played and tenure at the club to which he was drafted is concentrated in the early years of his career, and this apparent relation can be explained by the information about a player's ability that is contained in the player's draft order and by incentives for clubs to provide greater playing experience to higher ability players. Escalation effects in the AFL competition are therefore much weaker than have been found in studies of the US National Basketball Association (NBA). It is suggested that differences in the structure of the competitions may explain why the escalation effect in the AFL would be weaker than in the NBA.