Attitudes towards Uniform Accounting: Cultural or Economic Phenomena?

The existing literature suggests that uniformity versus flexibility is a key dimension of differentiation in cross-national financial reporting practices. However, the issue of what drives attitudes towards uniformity has not been explored. Drawing upon a variety of existing studies, this study explores the attitudes of Big 6 auditors in 23 countries towards rules mandating a single treatment across 14 issues. The study finds that auditors are in favor of a single mandated treatment in the majority of cases and that support for such rules is affected by both culture and the importance of the domestic stock market to the country. These results hold true even after the influence of extant practice or the level of uniformity of current practice is controlled for. Relatively higher levels of uniformity in de facto financial reporting practices and relatively stronger support for increased uniformity were both found in many of those countries which are traditionally thought of as having more flexible financial accounting systems.     

Who is more important,parents or children? Economic and environmental factors and health insurance purchase

The existing research indicates that insurance demand is affected by the policyholder’s occupation, family economy, urbanization level, and insurance coverage. Using micro data of insurance purchase at the individual level, this study investigates the influence of economic and environmental factors on the priorities of health insurance purchase decision. The results reveal that the more developed the economy and the more financial knowledge people possess, the more the latter tend to prioritize health insurance for their children. Furthermore, the study investigates the influence of air pollution on the decision to purchase health insurance. If the air pollution level is high, policyholders prioritize obtaining insurance for their children. Our research on the order of insurance purchase indicates that Chinese families have a lack of support from their children, and the function of family pension is gradually weakening. Our research also reveals that families are willing to spend money on the insurance of their children. Therefore, to solve the problem of health and old-age security for the elderly, it is more effective to promote health insurance by considering families as a unit     

Creating an Environment for Economic Growth: Creativity,Entrepreneurship or Human Capital?

Scholars and policymakers interested in the growth and prosperity of regions have long recognized that talent and knowledge are fundamental. Yet the question is what types of talent are needed in a growing twenty‐first‐century economy: human capital, creativity and innovation, or entrepreneurship? The latter we define broadly to include any type of risk taking, and not only radical innovation. The literature does not clearly point to one factor as being the most essential. This study assesses this question separately for rural and urban United States (US) counties. We find that human capital––measured by educational attainment––is considerably more conducive to employment growth than the share of creative occupations. Likewise, the share of small and medium businesses is also very conducive to local growth, although this does not apply to the self‐employment share. Rural and urban areas experience similar patterns, although the magnitude thereof tends to be larger for urban counties, whereas high‐technology employment share has had a positive effect in rural areas. Policy conclusions suggest that enhancing small business development and increasing educational attainment are the two strategies that are most likely to succeed.     

New Economic Geography and Reunified Germany at Twenty: A Fruitful Match?

Abstract

We qualitatively match new economic geography (NEG) to stylized facts on German economic integration after 1989. We find that NEG may explain German integration reasonably well. Germany may currently be close to the peak of the bell curve, which describes the long-run relationship between integration and agglomeration in Germany. As a consequence, further economic integration between the two parts of Germany may eventually foster redispersion of economic activity toward East Germany. We also identify limitations of NEG for explaining German integration, most notably the analytical complexity of multi-region models and its neglect of knowledge spillovers and labour pooling.

RÉSUMÉ Nous établissons une correspondance qualitative entre la nouvelle géographie économique (NEG) et des faits stylisés sur l'intégration économique allemande après 1989. Nous découvrons que la NEG permet d'expliquer raisonnablement bien l'intégration allemande. En fait, l'Allemagne est sans doute proche du sommet de la courbe en cloche, décrivant les rapports de longue durée entre l'intégration et l'agglomération en Allemagne. Donc, la poursuite de l'intégration économique entre les deux parties de l'Allemagne pourra favoriser une re-dispersion de l'activité économique envers l'Allemagne de l'Est. Néantmoins, nous identifions des limitations de la MEG pour expliquer l'intégration allemande, notamment la complexité analytique des modèles multirégionaux et la négligeance des retombées des connaissances (knowledge spillovers) et le groupement de la main-d'?uvre.

Extracto Emparejamos cualitativamente la Nueva Geografía Económica (NEG) con hechos estilizados de la integración económica alemana después de 1989. Descubrimos que la NEG puede explicar la integración alemana razonablemente bien. Actualmente, Alemania podría estar cerca de la cumbre de la curva de campana que describe la asociación a largo plazo entre integración y aglomeración en Alemania. En consecuencia, una mayor integración económica entre las dos partes de Alemania podría fomentar últimamente la re-dispersión de actividad económica hacia la Alemania del Este. Además identificamos limitaciones de la NEG para explicar la integración alemana, consistiendo principalmente en la complejidad analítica de los modelos multirregionales y en su preterición de los desbordamientos de conocimiento (knowledge spillovers) y de la concentración de mano de obra cualificada (labour pooling).

摘要:我们将新经济地理(NEG)和1989年德国经济统一后的典型事实进行定性比较。我们发现NEG可以很好地解释德国统一。德国现在非常接近钟形曲线的峰值, 意味着德国经济会长期呈现融合和聚集并存。因此, 东西德之间进一步的经济融合将最终促进经济活动流向东德。我们还找出了用NEG解释德国统一的局限性,尤其是多区域模型分析的复杂性以及对人才流失和劳动力储备的忽略。     

Economic fundamentals and Eurozone sovereign spreads: will the good news continue?

Spreads between government bond yields in the Eurozone periphery and Germany have fallen to the lowest levels in 3 to 4 years. There are two major factors behind this. The first is the speech by ECB President Mario Draghi on 26 July 2012 promising ‘to do – within its mandate – whatever it takes’ and the ECB's Outright Monetary Transactions initiative of summer 2012. This has been successful in eliminating fears of an imminent Eurozone break‐up. The second factor is the improvement in economic fundamentals in the periphery countries, particularly in Ireland, Spain and Greece. Previous econometric work on the role of economic fundamentals at the country level has focused almost entirely on government debt and government deficit to GDP ratios. The true fundamentals have been obscured by market panics and by the fact that markets really only took full account of these fundamentals from the end of 2010. Before the middle of 2007, markets ignored the build‐up of stresses between Eurozone countries. Once amplification of perceived risks by market panics and the shift from inattention to full market attention are taken into account, a far more nuanced picture emerges of what country fundamentals really matter for sovereign spreads. In addition to excessive government debt, deteriorating competitiveness, excessive private debt, and housing market crises spilling into banking systems, have been especially prominent in the countries at the periphery. In Ireland and Spain, declining relative unit labour costs and the fading of the housing crisis have recently been important in narrowing spreads against Germany. The econometric model also suggests that good news on relative growth and inflation help narrow spreads. Prospects for further narrowing of spreads for Greece and especially for Spain look good. Once the current bout of falling spreads is over, the underlying picture suggested by the estimated model is less good for Ireland, Italy and Portugal and for the euro area core economy, France. In all four cases, the government debt to GDP ratio has been deteriorating, and for France and Italy, competitiveness has not improved significantly. For France, another factor is the rising level of the private debt to GDP ratio. For Ireland, scope is limited for the effect on the spread of further improvements in competitiveness and housing market recovery.     

Fiscal Rules and Financial Systems: Complements or Substitutes?

We study the effect of fiscal rules on a country's credit rating and their interaction with financial development. We build a rich set of panel data, which includes a novel index for the strength of fiscal rules. We find a positive and significant effect of fiscal rules on sovereign ratings. We also find that this effect is attenuated in economies with a more developed domestic financial system. Therefore, financial markets act as a substitute for fiscal rules in lowering the default risk assessed by credit rating agencies. This substitution effect between fiscal rules and financial development is mostly triggered through the monitoring and enforcement dimension of fiscal rules.     

Social Capital: One or Many? Definition and Measurement

Three families of social capital concepts are discussed: (fa1) trust, (fa2) ease of cooperation, and (fa3) network. In the language of game theory, social capital is the excess propensity to play cooperative solutions in prisoners' dilemma games. The three families lead to different definitions, and thus to different measurement methods. Some measures are theory-near, while others are easy-to-use proxies. It is shown that all definitions and measures are related. The 'social capital dream' is that all definitions try to catch aspects of the same phenomenon, so that all measures tap the same latent variable. It is discussed whether this dream is likely to come true.     

Pluralism at Risk? Heterodox Economic Approaches and the Evaluation of Economic Research in Italy

We analyze Italy's recent research evaluation exercise (VTR) as a salient example in discussing some internationally relevant issues emerging from the evaluation of research in economics. We claim that evaluation and its criteria, together with its linkage to research institutions' financing, are likely to affect the direction of research in a problematic way. As the Italian case documents, it is specifically economists who adopt unorthodox paradigms or pursue less diffused topics of research that should be concerned about research evaluation and its criteria. After outlining the recent practice of economic research in Italy and highlighting the relevant scope for pluralism that traditionally characterizes it, we analyze the publications submitted for evaluation to the VTR. By comparing these publications to all the entries in the EconLit database authored by economists located in Italy, we find a risk that the adopted ranking criteria may lead to disregarding historical methods in favor of quantitative and econometric methods, and heterodox schools in favor of mainstream approaches. Finally, by summarizing the current debate in Italy, we claim that evaluation should not be refused by heterodox economists, but rather that a reflection on the criteria of evaluation should be put forward at an international level in order to establish fair competition among research paradigms, thus, preserving pluralism in the discipline.     

Managers' interpretations of LCA: enlightenment and responsibility or confusion and denial?

Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and ‘life cycle thinking’ are popular approaches to evaluate and manage the environmental aspects of products. While LCA has been propagated as a decision‐making tool, the interest here is in LCA as a mental model, which managers may interpret and enact differently. If LCA and ‘life cycle thinking’ manage to infuse organizations with an extended sense of responsibility, this could counteract some of the ‘organized irresponsibility’ of modern markets. However, LCA use may also lead to confusion, doubt and denial. This article explores potential managerial interpretations of LCA with a small illustration from the wholesale trade, and through a conceptualization of the illustration in terms of Hatch's ( 1993 ) dynamic model of organizational culture. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gross capital inflows and outflows: Twins or distant cousins?

We investigate the long-run relations and equilibrium correction mechanisms between gross capital inflows, outflows and global financial conditions for advanced (AE) and emerging market economies (EME). According to our results, the puzzling findings of the recent literature suggesting that domestic and foreign investors act as distant cousins, leading to capital inflows and outflows to act as twins, tend to be supported for the long run. The short-run relations, however, often appear to be consistent with the conventional theory suggesting that the behaviors of residents and non-residents do not systematically diverge from each other. Consistent with flight to safety concerns, capital outflows from EME and capital inflows to AE tend to increase in the long run in response to worsening global financial conditions. We find that these results essentially hold for the main components of capital flows as well.     

Environmental management certification and environmental performance: Greening or greenwashing?

This article analyzes the contribution of certifiable environmental management standards—such as ISO 14001 and the Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)—to corporate environmental performance. Based on a content analysis of 414 third‐party‐verified environmental statements from EMAS‐registered Spanish organizations, which included information for around 6,700 detailed indicators, a weak improvement in environmental performance was found. Less than half of the analyzed indicators—namely, 48.27%—revealed a net improvement. Similarly, analysis of the justifications of the registered companies for the lack of improvement points to a rather symbolical adoption of the certification, intended to do only the bare minimum. These findings call into question the prevailing opinion about the positive impact of voluntary certifiable environmental management standards on environmental greening. Implications for managers and public policy makers, as well as for other stakeholders, are discussed.     

Employee involvement and the middle manager: saboteur or scapegoat?

This article reports on the results of a study of managers' attitudes to employee involvement. Contrary to a number of existing studies, this research found middle managers' attitudes to be no more negative than those of senior managers. As hypothesised, managers' intentions to support employee involvement were found to be inversely related to recent managerial job loss and positively related to managers' experience of employee involvement. Contrary to expectations, the study revealed a positive relationship between recent delayering and intentions to support the involvement of employees. The study also reveals a complex curvilinear relationship between managers' perceptions of their own empowerment and their attitudes to employee involvement. The article draws out a number of implications for practice.     

Just-in-time and stockless programs for hospitals: fad or trend?

The JIT and stockless approach to provider-supplier relationships has proven to be a win-win proposition for the partners that have implemented it in many manufacturing industries and health care organizations as well. This strategy will fundamentally impact the entire cost structure within the hospital supply distribution chain. rewards have proven attainable and more comprehensive than had been hoped in the health care applications. The sweeping changes the health care industry experienced during the 1980s are leading creative materiel managers to seize the initiative to improve the current operating costs of their hospitals. They do not want to be left behind "holding the inventory."     

Economic policies: still shackled by post-war euphoria?

This country's economic and social policies remain dominated by the war-time consensus: Keynes and Beveridge and the full-employment White Paper, and belief that the state is best qualified to'run the economy.'The so-called monetarist and Thatcher revolutions failed to re-shape policy-making. Dependence on the rate of interest to suppress inflation, the staple of successive governments'macroeconomic policy, represents a neo-Keynesian survival and is a major source of our distempers. It needs reconsideration ab initio .     

HR managers and environmental sustainability: strategic leaders or passive observers?

In this paper, we explore the challenges posed to, and reactions of, human resource (HR) managers by the concept of environmental sustainability. From interviews with 14 New Zealand HR managers, we explore three related aspects of morality identified by Fineman: private, conventional, and enacted. Findings indicate that while the HR managers note a private position of environmental concern, they take a passive approach to environmental sustainability within their organizations. We note that this passive position is not without potentially adverse effects in relation to the role of HR as a strategic partner and for the advancement of environmental sustainability within organizations.     

Workplace mediation and the empowerment of disputants: rhetoric or reality?

There has been a growing interest in the field of employee relations in the use of mediation in seeking to resolve disputes in the workplace. Mediation is a model of dispute resolution, it is argued, that lends itself particularly well to situations where the parties have become entrenched in their positions. The study's timeliness is evident in the Government's recent strategic focus on workplace conflict, specifically its current initiative to pilot mediation networks within the small and medium enterprises sector. The research was carried out over a nine‐month period ending in March 2012. It is based on the views and experiences of 60 respondents from over 40 cross‐sectoral organisations in the North of England. Findings revealed that the main reasons for the disputes referred for mediation were relationship problems, poor communication and poorly perceived management style and practice. Significantly, differences in sector or occupation could also impact on whether cases went to mediation.