Preferences or private assessments on a monetary policy committee?

Using Bank of England voting data, we show empirically that members’ votes are driven by heterogeneous individual assessments of the economy as well as their individual policy preferences. Estimates indicate that internal committee members form more precise assessments than externals and are also more hawkish. The estimates allow the first quantification of the gain due to information aggregation on monetary policy committees. The marginal gain from additional committee members tapers quickly after five members. There is no evidence of gains through externals’ moderating internals’ preferences. A relatively small committee of highly informed internal members emerges as a desirable committee structure.     

Has Financial Regulation Been a Flop? (or How to Reform Dodd‐Frank)

Recent bank regulations have imposed large compliance costs on banks of all sizes, and have increased the costs of borrowing to both consumers and companies. But in this summary of his recent book, the author argues that the problems with banking system regulation go well beyond the excessive costs. Indeed, Dodd‐Frank and other post‐crisis regulatory reforms have failed to address the major shortcomings that produced the crisis of 2007–2009. Most importantly, excessive housing finance risk was not dealt with adequately, and is already on the rise again. And prudential standards for banks, while much stricter, remain unreliable in a severe economic downturn. After providing evidence of the shortcomings of major parts of the regulatory structure created after 2008, the author points to fundamental problems in the thinking underlying the post‐crisis regulatory changes that made those reforms unlikely to succeed. Moreover, he argues that the new processes of financial regulation have fostered many abuses of the rule of law, which have politicized regulation, adding to its cost and discrediting important supervisory and regulatory agencies. The author suggests that simpler, more effective, less costly, and more respectable approaches to regulation are possible. He offers a set of principles to guide reform and proposes over 20 specific actions that would enhance the effectiveness, reduce the costs, and improve the processes of bank regulation.     

Commentary: Has Australia (or Any Other Jurisdiction) ‘Adopted’ IFRS?1

This paper replies to a statement made in this journal that ‘Australia definitely adopts IFRSs’. We analyse and compare the several methods that jurisdictions can use to implement International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). These include adopting the International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) process of setting standards, as well as various forms of standard‐by‐standard implementation. We conclude that the Australian method of implementation is different in major ways from those used in such countries as Israel and South Africa, which involve adopting the IASB's process. By contrast, Australia follows a multi‐step process of enrolling each new standard into a category still entitled ‘Australian Accounting Standards’. To refer to the Australian method as ‘adoption’ of IFRS might therefore mislead, even though Australian companies eventually comply with IFRS.     

Should online social Medias (OSMs) be banned at work? The impact of social Medias on employee productivity in Ambo University,a case study

The study examines the relationship between the productivity of employee of Ambo University, academic staff and online social Medias by considering the major variables of the study like marital status, duration of stay of the Medias, frequency of usage, usage style, addiction status, purpose, time of usage and necessity of the Medias. For the study 112 academic staffs are partaken from various colleges, institutes and schools of the University. Binomial logistic regression is employed to find the significant factors that affect productivity. The study shows OSMs have positive impact on productivity of academic staff. Youngster academicians are more users of the Medias than oldies. It is found using for average time during official working hours, doesn’t harm the productivity of teachers. Necessity of the OSMs is significantly affect the productivity of the teachers because it is crucial for teaching and learning process. In addition, purpose of usage of OSMs, Frequency of visit, duration of stay on the Media, time of usage and addition to OSMs has also significantly affects independent variable. Marital status and sex of the teacher are statistically insignificant and has nothing to do with the using the Medias and productivity of the teachers. Since using OSMs not merely took the time of teachers, it doesn’t necessarily lower the productivity because they can perform some other unproductive activities instead. Therefore, it is suggested that academicians are fully granted right to use OSMs and university is advised to give training and awareness program on how to use in a way that it gives better benefit than simply ban Medias.