Global market integration: An alternative measure and its application

Global markets seem to be increasingly integrated but there is no well-accepted measure of integration. We show that the correlation across markets is a poor measure; perfectly integrated markets can exhibit weak correlation. We derive a new integration measure based on the explanatory power of a multi-factor model and use it empirically to investigate recent trends in global integration. For most countries, there has been a marked increase in measured integration over the past three decades, but this is not indicated by correlations among country indexes.     

The future of human consciousness

It is remarkable that few serious thinkers have speculated in public about the possible future forms that our species might take. A few Western philosophers and scientists—Nietzsche, ¹ Teilhard de Chardin ² and Yoneji Masuda ³—have touched on the next stage of evolution. In the East, others such as Sri Aurobindo ⁴ have interpreted contemporary transformations of society and culture as a cyclical manifestation of the upward spiral of human consciousness. The only genre of literature that seems to touch systematically on this matter has been science fiction—a professionally safe genre. There is no certainty of prediction required, only speculation about potentialities and possibilities—alternative futures and future alternatives. This article outlines a structural view that anticipates what may result from the complexification and reorganization of human consciousness.     

全球经济正进入新的不确定阶段

在2010中关村论坛上,国际货币基金组织总裁特别顾问朱民应邀做主旨演讲。他在演讲中谈到全球经济正在进入一个新的不确定阶段,而这一新变化的表现是全球的经济增长开始放慢,     

An alternative approach to determining present and future value interest factors for annuities due

This note presents an alternative approach to determining present and future annuities due interest factors. Many students find the adjustment to present and future ordinary annuities interest factors confusing and, consequently, memorize the rules without fully understanding their concepts. We encourage the use of an intuitive approach that makes adjustments with only one simple rule.     

Working for an alternative future in US-Soviet relations

The founders of the Supplemental Ways of Improving International Stability (SWIIS) programme of the International Federation of Automatic Control believed that system analysts and engineers could make useful inputs to the work of conflict resolution. This article describes initiatives deriving from this programme and considers a system approach to reducing the continuing stand-off between the USSR and the USA. The goals to be attained and barriers to their attainment in this process are outlined.     

Image theory: An alternative description of audit decisions

Building upon an analysis of audit decisions by Waller & Felix (1984) [in Moriarty, S. and Joyce, E. (eds) Decision Making and Accounting: Current Research (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984)], an alternative to the expected utility and “heuristics and biases” characterization of decision-making is presented. In this alternative, Image Theory, decisions are about adoption of goals and adoption of plans for attaining the goals, as well as about whether the plans are succeeding. The audit process is interpreted in terms of Image Theory and the salient research issues that this interpretation suggests are examined.     

Accounting choice and future performance: The case of R&D accounting in France

We examine whether managers’ decisions to capitalize or expense R&D expenditures convey information about the future performance of the firm. Focusing on a French setting where managers can choose to capitalize R&D expenditures under certain circumstances, we find that, after controlling for industry effects, firms that capitalize R&D expenditures spend less on R&D, have more volatile R&D efforts, and are smaller and more leveraged than firms that expense R&D expenditures. We also find that capitalizers capitalize R&D outlays when they need to meet or beat thresholds. Finally, we show that the decision to capitalize R&D is generally associated with a negative or neutral impact on future performance, even after controlling for self-selection. Our results also show that when firms both capitalize and expense R&D expenditures, the expensed portion exhibits a stronger (and negative) relationship with future performance. Market-based tests corroborate these findings. While we cannot unambiguously establish whether our findings imply that management uses R&D capitalization to manage earnings or because it is unable to estimate the earning power of R&D projects, our results suggest that management is unable to truthfully convey information about future performance through its decision to capitalize R&D. Our findings, based on real data as opposed to simulated data, therefore contrast with previous supportive evidence in favor of capitalization in the literature.     

The Monday effect revisited: An alternative testing approach

This paper questions traditional approaches for testing the Monday effect of stock returns. We propose an alternative, multiple hypothesis testing approach based on the closure test principle which controls the multiple type I error. We consider the US, the UK and the German stock markets and test Monday related pairwise comparisons of daily expected stock returns, while the probability of committing any type I error is always kept smaller than a prespecified level α, for each combination of true null hypotheses. Overall, the new testing approach supports previous findings of a Monday effect for the 1970s and 1980s, in particular for the US and Germany, while it suggests that the Monday effect has vanished in the 1990s and 2000s in all three markets. The comparison of the closure test procedure, the traditional multiple t-test and the Bonferroni test, a classical multiple test procedure, shows that traditional testing may result in spurious significance while the Bonferroni test may sometimes be too conservative.     

Uncovering the US term premium: An alternative route

The estimates of the US term premium crucially depend upon the ex-ante decision on whether the short-term rate is either an I(0) or an I(1) process. In this paper we estimate a fractionally integrated (I(d)) model which simultaneously determines both the order of integration of the short-term rate and the associated term premium. We show that the term premium experienced a sharp increase from essentially zero in mid-2007 to almost 3% in 2009. We also show that unemployment and term premium dynamics exhibit a very significant positive co-movement.     

Asset substitutability and monetary policy: An alternative characterization

A distance function is defined for a simple portfolio choice problem and then used to express the impact on asset prices of a change in an asset stock as the sum of a substitution and a wealth effect. Substitutes and complements are defined with reference to qualtity rather than price changes. This method of characterizing asset substitutability leads to simpler and more easily interpreted results when analyzing monetary policy that does the standard approach which expresses asset price changes in terms of the price elasticities of the asset demand functions.     

Cash burns: An inventory model with a cash-credit choice

A dynamic cash-management model is analysed where agents choose whether to pay with cash or credit at every point in time. In the model credit usage depends on the current stock of cash, a novel result that matches recent micro evidence on households’ payment choices. The optimality of such a decision rule is novel and cannot be obtained by models where cash-credit decisions are made at the “beginning” of each period. We discuss how to use the model to account for cross country-evidence on the intensity of credit usage and for several statistics on the size and frequency of cash withdrawals. The model is used to assess the household’s welfare cost of phasing out cash.     

Global trade and the future of national health care reform

As a result of economic globalization, health care reform is no longer strictly a matter of domestic health policy and politics. This paper argues that international trade agreements impose institutional constraints on governments’ abilities to implement health care reform, and, if left unchallenged, could frustrate social reforms. The thesis is developed through three case studies that examine the implications of various trade agreements for health care reform in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The findings are discussed in the context of theoretical debates concerning the impact of globalization on the autonomy of nation states and the relevance of national politics.     

Freedom of choice between unitary and two-tier boards: An empirical analysis

We examine board structure in France, which since 1966 has allowed firms the freedom to choose between unitary and two-tier boards. We analyze how this choice relates to characteristics of the firm and its environment. Firms with severe asymmetric information tend to opt for unitary boards; firms with a potential for private benefits extraction tend to adopt two-tier boards. Chief executive officer turnover is more sensitive to performance at firms with two-tier boards, indicating greater monitoring. Our results are broadly consistent with the Adams and Ferreira (2007) model and suggest that gains result from allowing freedom of contract about board structure.     

An alternative explanation of the price puzzle

This paper proposes an explanation for the frequent appearance of a price puzzle in VARs designed for monetary policy analysis. It assumes that the data are generated by a model in which output and output gap are not equivalent, while an econometrician follows the common practice of including only output in the VAR. The omission of the output gap is shown to spuriously produce a price puzzle (and several other incorrect conclusions) in a class of commonly used models. This can happen even if the model admits a triangular identification and if the forecasts produced by the misspecified VAR are optimal. When the model is tested on US data, all predictions are supported. A commodity price index is not needed to solve the puzzle.     

Some alternative tests of forward exchange rates as predictors of future spot rates

The paper provides empirical analysis on the issue of forward premiums as predictors of future exchange depreciations. The need to specify an alternative to the null hypothesis, other than its complement is emphasized. Two such alternatives are considered: the random walk model and the possibility of excessive or insufficient exchange rate volatility to accord with the efficiency of exchange markets.     

The statement of changes in financial position: An alternative teaching approach

The Statement of Changes in Financial Position (SCFP) is an important financial statement for external users. From a teaching point of view, however, the development of the SCFP has not been understood clearly by many accounting students.In order to properly understand the SCFP using either the working capital basis or cash basis, students need a framework for analyzing the impact of various transactions on the Statement. This article provides the accounting instructor with an alternate method for teaching the relationship between any transaction and the SCFP.     

International lending and income redistribution : An alternative view of country risk

The international debt crisis, where many large LDC borrowers were found lacking the ability to service their debt, redirects attention to the process by which those loans were granted. This renewed attention also brought forward the subject of country risk. This paper begins by demonstrating that the traditional measures of borrower credit worthiness had no impact on the credit granting decisions by international banks. The only variable which has some degree of explanatory power is the debt service as proportion of GNP. In other words, LDCs have borrowed money to service existing debts. Against the failure of the traditional model an alternative view is presented. This model is based on elements of political economy and taxation. The big borrowers of the LDC's are viewed as having the power to tax the developed countries and thus to affect a transfer of real income. This view is presented and analysed by means of a game-theoretic model as well as in a development economic framework. The implications of this view are extended to country risk analysis.     

Regulatory flexibility and management opportunism in the choice of alternative accounting standards: an illustration based on large French groups

Due to the flexibility of domestic accounting regulations, French groups are entitled to refer to international or American standards for their consolidation. The objective of this research paper is to focus on the choices made by the 100 largest French companies during the last 16 years (1985-2000). In practice, apart from the French rules, three “alternative” sets of standards are used: the International Accounting Standards (IAS), “international principles,” and the U.S. GAAP. The percentage of companies referring to alternative (i.e., non-French) standards rose in the first part of the period, then fell. Additionally, while the number of companies choosing U.S. GAAP increased over the period as a whole, the number preferring IAS or “international principles” has been in sharp decline since 1994-1995. Our results show that in this voluntary move towards international accounting harmonization, the choices made by French companies have clearly varied according to developments in French accounting regulations and the changing power balance between the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) and the SEC-FASB. This indicates a certain degree of opportunism by the management, who clearly keeps one eye constantly on the cost-benefit trade-off.     

Integral consciousness through the global lens: The great shift in the presiding technology of consciousness

It is now more evident that humanity is in the midst of a profound evolutionary shift in all dimensions of our cultural life and in our human condition. One symptom of this great shift is the increasing sense of “crisis” as our older dysfunctional forms of life and mind face a certain meltdown in this metamorphesis. Ironically, our entrenched patterns of “minding” and consciousness feed the crisis and eclipse the depth of the real crisis. The shift we now face has long been emerging since the dawn of civilizations, and is nothing less than an evolutionary shift, a maturation of our human form and technology of consciousness. Indeed, the essence of the global crises turns essentially on this “crisis” in consciousness—a radical dimensional shift in our rational capacities and mind processing powers. And this shift has been long seen and anticipated in our hitherto dormant global wisdom tradition through the ages. This essay suggests that our future sustainability now turns on bringing forth this mindshift from egomental patterns to more mature holistic, integral and dialogical patterns of being human through our dilated global lens.