Discussion of “The Effects of Taxes,Agency Costs and Information Asymmetry on Earnings Management: A Comparison of Public and Private Firms”

Review of Accounting Studies -     

Why Do Individual Investors Disregard Accounting Information? The Roles of Information Awareness and Acquisition Costs

We investigate the frictions that impede individual investors’ use of accounting information and, in particular, their costs of monitoring and acquiring accounting disclosures. We do so using an archival setting in which individuals are presented with automated media articles that report both current earnings news and past stock returns. Although these investors have earnings information readily available, we find no evidence that their trades incorporate it. Instead we find that their trading responds to the trailing stock returns presented in the articles. Our study raises questions about the efficacy of regulations that aim to aid less sophisticated investors by increasing their awareness of and access to accounting information.     

The comparative viewpoints of groups of accountants: More on the entity — Proprietary debate

The predominant conceptual viewpoint of accountants is critical in the process by which accounting standards are debated, promulgated and applied in practice. While the intellectual debate on this issue is dichotomized, little empirical evidence exists as to the strengths of competing advocacy. This paper reports the results of a study which show that most accountants subscribe to what has been called “middle positions” and then seeks to explain, at two levels of analysis, the nature of the change process relative to these viewpoints.     

The efficient markets hypothesis: The demise of the demon of chance?

Many commentators have suggested that economists in general and financial economists in particular have some responsibility for the recent global financial crisis. They were blinded by an irrational faith in a discredited Efficient Markets Hypothesis and failed to see the bubble in asset prices and to give due warning of its collapse. There is considerable confusion as to what this hypothesis is and what it says. The irony is that the strong implication of this hypothesis is that nobody, no practitioner, no academic and no regulator had the ability to foresee the collapse of this most recent bubble. While few economists believe it is literally true, this hypothesis is considered a useful benchmark with some important practical implications. Indeed, a case can be made that it was the failure to believe in the essential truth of this idea, which was a leading factor responsible for the global financial crisis .     

New development: The future of public service regulation—the professional's perspective

Regulatory failures have shifted the debate from the burden of regulation to its effectiveness. In response, regulators will be more sceptical of self-assessments, more responsive to consumers, provide better information, investigate inputs as well as outcomes and work more collaboratively.     

Analysis of the Leadership and Organizational Culture——The Fall of Arthur Andersen

Arthur Andersen LLP is formerly one of the Big Five accounting firms in the world. However, in 2002, it voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the United States, and was out of the 89 years career in the audit profession. Meanwhile the global branches of the firm is revoked and acquisition. This thesis analyses this event from a leadership and organizational culture perspective. It will elaborate from three aspects, including the organizational culture, internal integration, external environment and changing.     

王春:Free Style的投资宣言

率先提出"2005年A股市场将经历最坏的时刻"这一预言的人,是他,在遍地楚歌的2005年,预见性地指出"未来两年的股票市场将完成价值回归过程"的,有他;从业内资深策略分析师,被提拔为汇丰晋信首Free Style风格基金经理的,还是他--现任汇丰晋信动态策略基金经理王春.记者日前有幸代表个人投资者,向王春作了一次A股投资策略"咨询".     

Extensions and intensions of management control—The inclusion of health

Interest in management control of intangibles has grown remarkably during the last decades and now includes managing employee health. Research in this field is so far in the early stages: few empirical studies have been undertaken and fewer studies take into consideration the implications of such systems. In this paper we wish to contribute to the field with a qualitative study of instances of management control of health in ten Swedish organizations.Many good intentions lie behind the idea of making health and ill-health a subject for management control and the expected results are very positive—lower sick-leave rates, reduction of costs and human suffering. Such intentions stand for an intension, i.e. the ideas, properties or state of affairs that are connoted by a word or symbol, in this case what can be connoted by the concept of management control of health, its conceptual position. An intension, however, is not given insofar as a word or concept may be associated to more than one. Thus we set out to interpret management control of health in terms of two conceptual positions, modernism and postmodernism, in order to bring forth two very different intensions of management control of health: one where the practice is seen as an investment with a purpose to visualize ill-health and increase efficiency by putting in place measures to increase employee health; the other where the practice is seen as a means to make the individual accountable in order to be able to intensify control and colonize leisure.     

Management of Land Resource Put under Social Supervision

Recently the Ministry of Land Resources promised to the public that from March 1,2004, the executive affairs of the land resources management system will be open to the     

The idea of the future: Une découverte Franco—Britannique?

In this article I.F. Clarke turns from his current series on American anticipations in order to contribute a thesis for this issue: that futuristic literature is in origin the creation of many original thinkers in France and the UK. As every British schoolboy knows, our relationship with the French began on the morning of October 14th 1066, when the mailed knights of William the Claimant, as he then called himself, advanced on the shield wall of the last Saxon king at Senlac near Hastings. The Norman-French victory was a triumph of foresight and military planning. However, the leader who entered British history as William the Conqueror could never have foreseen the most important consequence of his victory: the merging of Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon which would create the most flexible and effective means of modern communication—the English language.     

New development: Accountability in public partnerships—The case of Local Strategic Partnerships

Present arrangements for the accountability of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are confused. While only local authorities have a direct accountability to the electorate for them, yet they lack powers over their public partners to make that accountability genuine. These partners should be obliged to follow the lead of the local authority.     

The Use of Computers in Accounting Courses: A New Perspective—A Comment

This comment examines the framework put forward by Er and Ng (Accounting and Business Research, Autumn 1989) and calls for a more radical re-evaluation of the role of computers in accounting education.