Book reviews

Public Sector Management Norman Flynn. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, UK (1990). 201 pp. £9.95. ISBN 0–7450–0594–2.

CIPFA Guide to the Community Charge R. Hale and C. Stewart (Eds). Longman, Harlow, UK (1990). Price £225. ISBN 0–582–063–54X.

Ethics in the British Civil Service Richard A. Chapman. Routledge, London ( 1988). pp. xix + 338. £30.     

Further reading

On the Dynamics of Growth and Debt By Casper van Ewijk Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. viii + 220pp. ISBN 0 19 828346 6.

Hillier, B. (1991), The Macroeconomic Debate: Models of the Closed and Open Economy. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Citizens, Consumers and Councils By John Gyford Macmillan, London, 1991. 215pp. Hard cover £35.00, ISBN 0 333 52534 5; paper cover £9.99, ISBN 0 333 52535 3.

Trapped in Poverty ? Labour‐Market Decisions in Low‐Income Households By Bill Jordan, Simon James, Helen Kay and Marcus Redley Routledge, London, 1992. 350 pp. £40.00.

Politics and Policy‐Making in Northern Ireland By Michael Connolly. Philip Allan, Hemel Hempstead, 1990. 178 pp.     

Book reviews

Public Debt Management: Theory and History. Edited by Rudiger Dornbusch and Mario Draghi. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1990). xix + 354 pp. £30.00. ISBN 0 521 39266 7.

Understanding the UK Economy Edited by P. Curwen. Macmillan, London (1990). xvii + 359 pp. £35.00. ISBN 0333 51104 2.

Politics and Public Policy in Scotland By Arthur Midwinter, Michael Keating and James Mitchell. Macmillan, London (1991). xii + 240 pp. £9.99. ISBN 0333 52265 6.     

Book reviews

Working with Developers in Urban Renewal

Francis Terry (Ed.). Public Finance Foundation London (1989). Discussion Paper 26, 78 pp. £10.00. ISBN 0 85299 445 1.

Councils in Conflict

S. Lansley, S. Goss and C. Wolmar. Macmillan, London (1989). x + 216 pp. £8.99. ISBN 0 333 454 138.

The Future of Housing Allowances

J. Hills, R. Berthoud and P. Kemp. Policy Studies Institute (1989). 71 pp. £5.95. ISBN 0 85374 461 0.     

Facts & figures: Health care: Private and public spending,resources, need and provision; Privatisation: A further progress report

Labour Market Policy and Unemployment Insurance Anders Björklund, Robert Haveman, Robinson Hollister and Bertil Holmlund. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 205 pp. £25. 00. ISBN 0 19 828323 7.

Survey of Computer Fraud &; Abuse 1990 Audit Commission, Nicholson House, Lime Kiln Close, Stoke Gifford, Bristol BS12 6SU, UK. £7.50. (A supplement at £9.50 details all the individual cases used in compiling the report.)

Public Sector Financial Management H. M. Coombs and D. E. Jenkins. Chapman &; Hall, London (1991). x + 294 pp. £14.95. ISBN 0 412 38550 3.     

Facts & figures: Public sector pay: The last ten years

Next Steps: Improving Management in Government? Edited by Barry J. O'Toole and Grant Jordan (Dartmouth Publishing Company, Aldershot, 1995). £37.50. ISBN 1 855 21491 1.

The Myth of Democratic Failure. By Donald Wittman (University of Chicago Press, Chicago; distributed by John Wiley, Chichester, 1995). £23.95. ISBN 0 226 90422 9.

Managing Change in the New Public Sector. Edited by Roger Lovell (Pearson Professional, Southport, 1995). £32.50. ISBN 0 582 23893 5.     

Book Reviews

Organized Uncertainty: Designing a World of Risk Management. Michael Power. Oxford University Press, 2007. xviii and 248pp. ISBN 978–0–9–925394–4. £24.99.

Intellectual Capital Reporting: Lessons from Hong Kong and Australia. J. Guthrie, R. Petty and F. Ricceri. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, 2007, vii and 118pp. ISBN 978–1–904574–27–9. £15

The Routledge Companion to Fair Value and Financial Reporting. P. Walton (ed.). Routledge, 2007. xviii and 404 pp. ISBN 978–0–415–42356–4. £95.

UK Reporting of Intellectual Capital. Jeffrey Unerman, James Guthrie and Ludmila Striukova. ICAEW Centre for Business Performance, 2007. 68 pp. ISBN 978 1 84152 507 5. £20.     

CALL FOR PAPERS

Organized Uncertainty: Designing a World of Risk Management. Michael Power. Oxford University Press, 2007. xviii and 248pp. ISBN 978–0–9–925394–4. £24.99.

Intellectual Capital Reporting: Lessons from Hong Kong and Australia. J. Guthrie, R. Petty and F. Ricceri. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, 2007, vii and 118pp. ISBN 978–1–904574–27–9. £15

The Routledge Companion to Fair Value and Financial Reporting. P. Walton (ed.). Routledge, 2007. xviii and 404 pp. ISBN 978–0–415–42356–4. £95.

UK Reporting of Intellectual Capital. Jeffrey Unerman, James Guthrie and Ludmila Striukova. ICAEW Centre for Business Performance, 2007. 68 pp. ISBN 978 1 84152 507 5. £20.     

Book review

Evaluating Health and Social Care By C. Phillips, C. Palfrey and P. Thomas (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1994). Hardback £35.00; paperback £11.99. ISBN 0 333 59185 2 (hardback); 0333 59186 0 (paperback).     

Book Review

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History. Editors: John Richard Edwards and Stephen P. Walker. Routledge, Taylor &; Francis Group, London and New York. 2008. xvii and 619 pp. ISBN 9780415410946. £125.     

Book review

Accounting, Organizations, & Institutions: Essays in Honour of Anthony Hopwood. Christopher S. Chapman, David J. Cooper and Peter B. Miller (Eds.). Oxford University Press, 2009. 441pp. ISBN 978–0–19–954635–0. £60.     

Debate: Local councils' dilemma of planning for uncertainty

The public expenditure implications of PFI projects in Scotland's NHS are substantial. This article compares PFI capital expenditure with projected unitary charges, examines the annual cost of existing PFI schemes and looks at future costs arising from the planned expansion of PFI. Unless the new Scottish National Party-led administration applies the breaks, the annual cost of PFI to Scotland's NHS is to increase almost five-fold, from £107.1 million in 2005/06 to £500 million by the early part of the next decade.     

One-state variable binomial models for European-/American-style geometric Asian options

Abstract

This paper is concerned with geometric Asian options whose pay-offs depend on the geometric average of the underlying asset prices. Following the Cox et al (1979 J. Financial Economics 7 229-63) arbitrage arguments, we develop one-state variable binomial models for the options on the basis of the idea of Cheuk and Vorst (1997 J. Int. Money Finance 16 173-87). The models are more efficient and faster than those lattice methods (for the options) proposed by Hull and White (1993 J. Derivatives 1 21-31), Ritchken et al (1993 Manage. Sci. 39 1202-13), Barraquand and Pudet (1996 Math. Finance 6 17-51) and Cho and Lee (1997 J. Financial Eng. 6 179-91). We also establish the equivalence of the models and certain difference schemes.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Capital Budgeting Under Uncertainty. By RAJ AGGARWAL. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1993. Pp. x + 341. Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor. By JOHN C. BOGLE. Burr Ridge, Illinois: Irwin Professional Publishing, 1994. Pp. xvi + 320. The Collapse of Federally Insured Depositories: The Savings and Loans as Precursor. By R. DAN BRUMBAUGH JR. New York: Garland Publishing, 1993. Pp. xxii + 240. Collateralized Mortgage Obligations: Structures and Analysis. By FRANK J. FABOZZI, CHARLES RAMSEY, and FRANK R. RAMIREZ. Summit, N.J.: Frank J. Fabozzi Associates, 1993. Pp. vii + 250. Short-Term Financial Management. By TERRY S. MANESS and JOHN T. ZIETLOW. St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Company, 1993. Pp. xix + 675. Canadian Capital Markets. Edited by MICHAEL J. ROBINSON and BRIAN F. SMITH. London, Ontario: Western Business School, The University of Western Ontario, 1993. Pp. iv + 152.     

An infinite depth dam with Poisson input and Poisson release

Abstract

In this paper the content Z(t) of a dam where Z(t) ε( - ∞, h], h an arbitrary constant, is studied. Inputs to the dam form a sequence of i.i.d. r.v.'s and occur according to a Poisson process with parameter λ > 0 while releases from the dam form a sequence of i.i.d. r.v.'s and occur according to a Poisson process with parameter μ > 0. The Laplace transform of the process Z(t) is derived and expressions for the moments are given. It is shown that Z(t) has a nondegenerate limiting distribution, as t -- ∞, if average inputs per unit time exceed average releases per unit time.     

Le XIImecongrès international d'actuaires

Abstract

We study the following inverse thinning problem for renewal processes: for which completely monotone functions f is f/(p+qf), 0?p?1, q=1-p, completely monotone? A characterisation of such f's is given. We also study the case when f comes from a gamma distribution, and present some ideas for more general results.

The intention of this note is to add some information to a paper by Yannaros (1985), in which thinned renewal processes are considered. Let X_n , n?1, be i.i.d. non-negative random variables, distributed according to a probability measure µ, and let S_n = X ₁+...+X_n (with S ₀=0) be the corresponding renewal process. Replacing µ by the probability measure ν=∑_n?1 pq^n-1 µ^n* (µ^n* =µ* ... µ*, n times) we get a new renewal process, obtained from the original one by independently at each stage preserving the process with probability p. Here and below q= 1-p, and to avoid trivialities we assume that 0 Let µ^(s) = ∫[0,∞) exp (-sx)µ(dx) , s?0, denote the Laplace transform of µ. Then ν^=pµ/(1-µ^). We will study the inverse problem: given a completely monotone function ψ, when does ψ(p+qψ) define a completely monotone function. A complete characterisation, and some of its consequences, is given in §§ 1–3 below. In §§ 4–5 we study the gamma distribution. It is proved that the inverse problem has a negative solution when the parameter a > 1, i.e. 1/(p + q(1 + s) ^a ) is not completely monotone then. In Yannaros (1985) this was proved for a=2, 3, ... with entirely different methods. (That 1/(p+q(1+s)^a is completely monotone for 0?a?1 is easily seen; cf. Yannaros (1985). Finally, in § 6 we give some suggestions to more general results related to thinning. Perhaps the most interesting problem is to find sufficiently general conditions for an absolutely monotone function to have a Bernstein function as its inverse.     

Scaling in financial prices: IV. Multifractal concentration

In the Brownian model, even the largest of N successive daily price increments contributes negligibly to the overall sample variance. The resulting 'absent' concentration justifies the role of variance in measuring Brownian volatility.

Mandelbrot introduced in 1963 an alternative 'mesofractal model', in which the population variance is infinite. A significant proportion of the overall sample variance comes from an absolutely small number of large contributions, expressing a 'hard' form of concentration.

To achieve a prescribed proportion of the overall measured variance, those 1900 and 1963 models require numbers of days of the order of N ¹ and N ⁰, respectively. This paper shows that an intermediate possibility exists: a new and very flexible 'soft' form of concentration is provided by the 'multifractal' model Mandelbrot introduced in 1997. The standard 'extreme values' theory applies to mesofractals but multifractals behave very differently. The single largest contribution to sample variance is asymptotically negligible; however, an arbitrarily high proportion of the overall variance is contributed by a number of days of the order of N ^D, where 0<D<1. The characteristic exponent D, a fractal dimension, is a consequence of scaling. It allows 'softness' to be modulated between the unrealistic extremes N ¹ and N ⁰. As N increases, so does the absolute number N ^D, but the relative number N ^D/N decreases to zero. As a result, the bulk of the significant effects concentrates in a small proportion of cases. (This is a finite approximation of a set of measure zero, but mathematical refinements do not matter in this paper.)     

International accounting books: Publishers' dream,authors' nightmare and educators' reality

Abstract

The emergence of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as the required convention for reporting to stock exchanges in the European Union (EU) and other important markets, together with the convergence programmes of major standard setters, has accelerated the reduction in differences in financial reporting between countries. The education of potential accountants would be expected to respond to these changes and, indeed, there is evidence that the teaching of accounting techniques now frequently draws on both IFRS and local GAAP. Perhaps a greater shift has been in the discipline of International Accounting (IA), which has moved from being an optional subject to being core to most programmes and an increasingly popular choice for more specialised degrees at both undergraduate and Master's levels. This article surveys the books that are available to support educators and learners in IA building on the analysis and classification of Laidler and Pallett (1998) Laidler, J. and Pallett, S. 1998. International accounting: a review of books available to support UK courses: a teaching note. Accounting Education: an International Journal, 7(1): 75–86. [Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] Accounting Education: an international journal, 7(1), pp. 75–86. A range of IA textbooks is examined in detail, along with a more general review of reference works. The analysis finds that there has been a growth in the number, breadth and depth of texts serving the IA market. Authors have fallen upon a number of devices in their battle to keep their materials up to date in this dynamic environment. Some of Laidler and Pallett's (1998) Laidler, J. and Pallett, S. 1998. International accounting: a review of books available to support UK courses: a teaching note. Accounting Education: an International Journal, 7(1): 75–86. [Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] criticisms of the writing and coverage of IA texts have been addressed, although not necessarily in the way that they envisaged. In spite of the growth of this section of publishers' catalogues, there remain a number of areas given scant coverage, notably enforcement and audit, and countries outside of the EU and US. The article concludes with recommendations for publishers, authors and educators to enhance the teaching of IA and the resources needed to support it.     

Sur la notion de prime d'épargne

Abstract

Il est bien connu que la réserve mathématique W (t) d'une assurance très générale sur la vie satisfait à une équation différentielle de Thiele, à savoir où l'on a

• δ (t) = le taux instantané ou l'intensité d'intérêt,

• μ (t) = l'intensité de mourir,

• P (t = la prime par unité du temps,

• S (t) = le capital assuré en cas de décès.

     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Economics of Mutual Fund Markets: Competition Versus Regulation. By WILLIAM BAUMOL, STEPHEN GOLDFELD, LILLI GORDON, and MICHEAL KOEHN. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990. Pp. xiv + 242. The Great Myths of 1929 and the Lessons to be Learned. By HAROLD BIERMAN, Jr. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 203. Currency Risk and Business—Management. By ALFRED KENYON. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. vi + 260. The Future of Banking. By JAMES L. PIERCE. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Pp. x + 163.