Skills in South Africa: The journey towards credible planning

ABSTRACT

Since 1994 the state has instituted active labour market policies to redress the apartheid skills legacy. The skills planning challenge continues to be how to coordinate efforts for the provision of the right skills to support inclusive economic growth, ensuring an alignment is achieved between what is required in the labour market and the supply from the education and training system. This article traces the South African journey of skills planning from late apartheid until the current time period in 2014 through a historical analysis of the political economy. The analysis reflects on the relationship between state formation in South Africa and the role of the state in directing skills development, and in the more recent period how skills planning responds to both the demands of the economy and ameliorating the historical legacies of education and skills exclusion.     

The effects of the planning memorandum,time pressure and individual auditor characteristics on audit managers' review time judgments*

Abstract. This study examines audit managers' review time effort (as reflected in their time estimates for working paper review) and the extent to which this effort is directed by another important audit manager activity: initial audit planning. Initial audit planning is manipulated by identifying certain audit areas as critical in the planning memo. Time pressure and individual auditor characteristics also are examined because auditing literature suggests that they may affect managers' review. The analysis is based on the responses, to an audit case, of 73 audit managers from ten large accounting firms. The results indicate that: 1) the managers exhibit reasonable agreement in budgeting over half of audit management time to review, 2) the initial audit plan directs their subsequent review, 3) time pressure does not significantly affect their estimated review times, and 4) firm affiliation, auditor experience level, and initial planning effort are associated with differences in managers' review practices and perceptions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for practice and further research.     

Participatory research as a tool for community development

In Third World countries, where resources are scarce, social scientists are confronted with the challenge of providing knowledge and services relevant to national development. This paper attempts to address this ‘relevance’ question by exploring the relationship between participatory research (as a social science research paradigm) and community development. The assumption is that people possess indigenous skills and knowledge, but that these need to be harnessed and refined in order that they can be effectively utilised in the planning and implementation of development processes. It is argued that human capacity building and empowerment are core components of participatory research and a prerequisite for appropriate development. A participatory research project in a rural resettlement village in the Ciskei is presented to illustrate the implementation of participatory research as a tool for community development.     

Employment quality index for the South African labour market

ABSTRACT

While the South African government specifically set targets on job creation in its numerous economic strategies since the economic transition, various local studies examined the levels and trends in labour force, employment and unemployment to evaluate if these targets were met. However, the quality of employment has not been thoroughly examined. This is the first local study that fills the existing research gap by deriving a composite, multidimensional employment quality index by taking 18 indicators from seven dimensions into consideration: wage, work hours and flexibility, employment security, income security, social benefits, skills and participation. Using the 2010–16 Quarterly Labour Force Survey data, the empirical findings indicated that highly educated, white male workers aged at least 35 years, who lived in urban areas of the Western Cape and Gauteng provinces, and were involved in high skilled occupations in the formal, public sector enjoyed significantly better employment quality.     

Expertise Rents from Insider Trading for Financial Experts on Audit Committees

We document the existence of expertise rents by finding that financial experts on audit committees obtain higher abnormal returns from insider purchases than do non‐financial experts on audit committees. We further investigate whether information processing skills work alone or jointly with an information advantage to generate expertise rents. While financial experts on audit committees outperform financial experts on other committees, financial experts on compensation, executive, nominating, and governance committees do not outperform non‐financial experts on these committees. These findings suggest that expertise rents are domain‐specific and can be obtained only when directors have both access to private information and information processing skills. In additional testing, we find that expertise rents for financial experts on audit committees are primarily driven by non‐accounting financial experts, whose finance or supervisory experience could make them better than accounting financial experts in understanding market conditions and assessing firm risk.     

The Use and Characteristics of Foreign Component Auditors in U.S. Multinational Audits: Insights from Form AP Disclosures*

This paper investigates the common, yet previously opaque, practice of using foreign audit firms (component auditors) to conduct portions of audit work for U.S. public companies. U.S. regulators have expressed concern for the transparency and quality of audits using component auditors. Employing data disclosed in the newly mandated PCAOB Form AP, we find that component auditor use is largely structural, determined by the size and complexity of clients' multinational operations. We do not find that the mere use of component auditors is detrimental to audit outcomes, but rather the amount of work conducted by component auditors is associated with lower audit quality (i.e., higher likelihood of misstatement), higher likelihood of nontimely reporting, and higher audit fees, which collectively suggest that component auditor engagements are associated with adverse outcomes. Furthermore, we find that only the work performed by less competent component auditors and those facing geographic and cultural/language barriers, including significant geographic and cultural distance, weak rule of law, and low English language proficiency, is associated with adverse audit outcomes. Overall, these findings provide initial archival evidence that the use of certain component auditors on U.S. multinational audits is associated with audit coordination issues, which suggests that PCAOB Form AP disclosures provide relevant information.     

BOT项目前期的政府监督问题及对策研究

政府监管是政府或政府指定的特设机构依据法律或法定授权对市场经济主体采取的一系列行政管理与监督的行为。BOT项目前期是由政府占据主导地位的，因此该阶段的政府监管更多的是对自身行为的监督。目前，该阶段存在立项规划欠缺前瞻性、招投标相关法律法规不健全、招投标存在不公平现象以及特许经营协议不完善的问题。必须充分考虑经济发展和城市规划的因素、完善BOT项目相关法律法规、规范招投标程序运作、强化政府监督的内部约束机制，以保障项目下一阶段的顺利进行。     

Battling the informal settlement challenge through sustainable city framework: experiences and lessons from Harare,Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

This study examines the efficacy of adopting the sustainable city framework as an urban planning agenda with a view to addressing the dilemma of informal settlements in Harare, Zimbabwe. Data were collected through document review which was triangulated with key informant interviews. Thematic and content analysis was then used to analyse the data. The results of the study show that informal settlements in Harare are a result of a multiplicity of factors which include political economy, uncoordinated planning, invasion of land by land barons and inappropriate planning ideologies. The planning approaches to address informal settlements also tends to be too harsh at times when evictions are used though there are some instances where it is commendable-regularisation by UDC. The study recommends the adoption of planning approaches that conform to the local realities in Harare as well as considering the sustainable cities framework.     

Business Strategy,Financial Reporting Irregularities,and Audit Effort

This study examines whether clients' business strategies are a factor in determining the occurrence of financial reporting irregularities and the level of audit effort. We use the organizational strategy theory of Miles and Snow to develop a comprehensive measure of business strategy using publicly available data. We find that Miles and Snow's Prospector strategy is more likely to be involved in financial reporting irregularities and generally requires greater audit effort. The business strategy measure also appears to capture client business risk and provides incremental explanatory power beyond the individual measures of client complexity or risk used in traditional audit fee models. We contribute to the literature by constructing a replicable business strategy measure and identifying organizational business strategy as an important ex ante determinant of financial reporting irregularities and levels of audit effort. Our results suggest that investigating how audits can be improved to reduce financial reporting irregularities among Prospector clients is an important area for audit practice and future research.     

Employee Movements from Audit Firms to Audit Clients

Regulators have expressed concerns about the “revolving door” between auditors and clients, whereby audit employees move directly from audit firms to audit clients (i.e., “direct alumni hires”). Regulators are concerned that these direct hires could compromise audit quality, partly because these employees could have previously audited their hiring company's financial statements. In contrast, we examine accounting and finance executives who move indirectly from audit firms to audit clients and who could not have previously audited the hiring company's financial statements (i.e., “indirect alumni hires”). We show that indirect hires occur more often than the direct hires that have concerned regulators. We predict and find that both direct and indirect alumni hires are associated with lower rates of executive turnover and audit firm turnover. However, there is no evidence that the reduced rates of executive turnover are explained by managerial entrenchment or that these hires are associated with lower audit quality. Overall, our findings suggest that direct and indirect employee movements from audit firms to audit clients are beneficial to executives, audit clients, and audit firms because they reduce the incidence of costly turnover.     

Maritime trade and economic development in South Ostrobothnia

Abstract

Provincial history has been an object of lively interest in Finland during the last ten years or so. The majority of provinces are planning to have their histories written. Amongst these plans, that for South Ostrobothnia is the most advanced: four large volumes are now complete, covering the history of the region from prehistoric times down to 1809.     

The Effects of Outward Foreign Direct Investment on Fixed-Capital Formation at Home: The Roles of Host Location and Industry Characteristics

Abstract

This paper pursues the idea that the relationship between foreign and domestic investments may be not as uniform as many studies suggest. By examining the case of Taiwanese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), this paper is marked out from existing studies in the following three respects. First, it examines the extent to which the relationship between OFDI and domestic investment varies with the location of investment. Second, this research allows the results to vary between Heckscher–Ohlin (H–O) industries and Schumpeter industries. Finally, its breakdown of data will reveal sub-relationships in the data that up to now have remained hidden within the aggregate relationships reported in most studies. This study suggests that OFDI in China has a positive impact on domestic investment in H–O industries, while OFDI in other countries (OFDIO) has a negative impact on domestic investment in the same industries. These findings are in marked contrast to Schumpeter industries where a positive effect is observed only for OFDIO. Our findings also suggest that the Taiwanese government should design policies to adjust the level of liberalisation for overseas investment through legislation on an industry-by-industry basis in order that OFDI stimulates domestic investment in relevant industries more effectively.     

An Examination of the Government Spending and Economic Growth Nexus for Malaysia Using the Leveraged Bootstrap Simulation Approach

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to re-examine the government spending-growth nexus for Malaysia from the perspective of disaggregated government spending. The yearly data from 1960 to 2007 is used in this study. This study applied the bounds testing for co-integration and the leveraged bootstrap simulation approaches to examine the relationship between three different categories of government spending and national income in Malaysia. It is found that government spending on education and defence are co-integrated with national income. Nevertheless, there is no evidence of co-integrating relation between government spending on health and national income. The MWALD causality test shows strong evidence of unidirectional causal relationship running from national income to the three major government spending in Malaysia. However, bilateral causality evident exists only between government spending on health and national income.     

媒体负面报道对审计延迟的影响研究

利用2012—2020年我国A股非金融类上市公司相关数据，通过中国研究数据服务平台手工搜集整理中国上市公司财经新闻数据库（CFND）中的网络媒体负面报道次数，实证检验了媒体负面报道对审计延迟的影响。研究发现，媒体负面报道会增加审计延迟，这一效应在非行业专长子样本（Expert=0）的样本中显著存在。在控制了内生性偏差后，结论依旧不变。进一步研究了媒体负面报道对审计延迟的影响机制，发现媒体负面报道会通过提高审计师的风险感知度对审计延迟产生影响，具体表现为，当企业面临的媒体负面报道次数增加时，审计师为降低审计风险会选择加大审计资源的投入，审计延迟随之增加。     

The ‘Special’ World: Stalin's Power Apparatus and the Soviet System's Secret Structures Of Communication

ABSTRACT

Two of the most defining trends of the nineteenth century were the growth of international trade and the increased role of government activities in the economy. In the conjuncture between these developments lie taxes on foreign trade. Sweden was one of the examples where customs revenue became the single most important source of revenue before WWI. This article sets out to test how this source of revenue could increase as much as it did. The analysis focuses mainly on trade policy and how tariffs were set and how that affected revenue. The results show that Swedish liberalisation of trade forced a switch in the fiscal structure of tariffs, moving revenue to fewer commodities. Increased importance was given to consumption goods with lower elasticity of demand. Trade continued to increase under fiscal taxation, which led to increases in revenue. During the early period increased revenue was achieved with higher tariffs on a few key commodities. Towards the end of the century tariffs on agricultural and capital goods became more fiscally relevant, which could have clashed with protectionist intentions. The article highlights that more work is needed on this fiscal component of trade policy.     

The Impact of Internal Auditor Compensation and Role on External Auditors' Planning Judgments and Decisions*

This paper reports the results of an experiment that investigates how external audit planning is affected when internal auditors have incentives and the opportunity to bias their evaluations. Specifically, we draw on attribution theory to examine how internal auditor eligibility for incentive compensation and participation in consulting (i.e., two factors that provide incentives to bias audit evaluations) affect external audit planning. In addition, we examine the effects of incentive compensation and a consulting role across two routine internal audit tasks — an objective tests of controls task and a subjective inventory valuation task — to evaluate whether their effects are contingent upon task subjectivity (i.e., opportunity to bias audit evaluations). Seventy‐six external auditors from four Big 5 public accounting firms participated in an experiment that manipulated internal auditor compensation (fixed salary versus incentive compensation), the type of work that the internal auditors routinely perform (primarily auditing versus primarily consulting), and audit task subjectivity (objective tests of controls versus subjective inventory valuation). Our results suggest that the nature of internal auditors' compensation and work affect audit planning recommendations differently. The opportunity to receive incentive compensation results in less reliance on internal auditors' work and greater budgeted audit hours, but only for the subjective task. Although a consulting role decreases perceived internal auditor objectivity, it has a limited effect on planning recommendations. Specifically, consulting has no effect on reliance, and leads to greater budgeted audit hours only when incentive compensation is available. We discuss potential explanations for the results as well as implications for audit research, practice, and regulation.     

Fiscal Subsidy Policy on Home Appliances: Its Effects on Domestic Consumption and Exports in China

This paper evaluates the effects of the Home Appliances Going to the Countryside (HAGC) policy, a fiscal subsidy program implemented in China to boost private consumption of home appliances in rural areas from 2007 to 2012. Using the policy as a natural experiment and employing the difference‐in‐difference estimator, we find that the policy did not increase domestic sales of relevant goods as expected; instead, it actually reduced domestic sales and significantly promoted exports. These surprising results are robust across regressions of alternative datasets, more controls, and different regions. We further provide detailed information of undisclosed audit data for a county in Zhejiang province to shed light on the underlying mechanism of such unexpected results, suggesting loopholes in the HAGC and changes in export tax rebate rates.     

Effects of the first world war on the engineering industries of Estonia and Finland

Abstract

At the turn of the last century, international political tension intensified and the Great Powers accelerated their armament efforts. Conflicts in the Balkans threatened, as early as in 1908, to lead the two blocs of European countries into a great war for which especially Russia would have been very poorly prepared. The economic crisis of the early 1900s had increased the technological backwardness of the eastern Empire's heavy industry and armament compared with those of the other Great Powers. Partly for this reason the Russian government considered it best to stay outside the Balkan conflict at this point and to concentrate on modernising its army's weaponry and speeding up the building of strategic railways and harbours in the western parts of the Empire. In 1908 the Imperial government acquired a domestic loan of 200 million rubles, followed by a foreign loan of 525 million rubles, to finance these armament efforts.     

Auditors' Use of Formal Advice from Internal Firm Subject Matter Experts: The Impact of Advice Quality and Advice Awareness on Auditors' Judgments

When subject matter experts are consulted during an audit, the quality of the expert's advice depends upon their ability to fully understand and incorporate client‐specific facts into their advice. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection reports suggest that auditors are neglecting to perform the required work to assess the quality of experts' recommendations. This study examines how characteristics of the audit, notably staffing decisions, can impede auditors' ability to discern advice quality. In an experiment, we examine how receiving advice of different levels of quality (lower or higher incorporation of relevant client facts) and awareness at the planning stage of the use of a subject matter expert (a priori aware or unaware) impacts auditors' effort, utilization of the advice, and judgment accuracy. We find that awareness of an expert being employed led to a social facilitation effect such that auditors who were a priori aware put forth more effort prior to receiving the expert advice and were initially in less agreement with management's aggressive revenue recognition position than auditors who were unaware. Upon receiving the expert advice, auditors who were a priori aware were more accurate than auditors who were unaware. These results should interest both audit regulators and practitioners by demonstrating how the timing and communication of consulting decisions affect auditors' assessments of advice received from subject matter experts.