And then current accounts (over)adjusted

The global financial turmoil has led to an unprecedented current account adjustment in central and eastern Europe. This article investigates this issue by revisiting two approaches. The first is the current account literature based on panel econometric techniques. This article adds to the literature by showing that, although there is a large degree of parameter uncertainty associated with the choice of determinants, the implied current account benchmarks for central and eastern Europe are in a narrow range. The second approach is the external sustainability framework where we extend the analysis to take into account the importance of FDI financing. We find that both approaches point to similar conclusions on which countries were in need of a current account adjustment in central and eastern Europe in 2007. The turmoil in financial markets in 2008 set this adjustment in motion.     

Long-run determinants of current accounts in OECD countries: Lessons for intra-European imbalances

In this paper we study the long-run determinants of current account balances in 21 OECD countries. We define long-run targets to determine whether actual current account balances are in line with their equilibrium values and find that, following the crisis, the United States, Japan and Spain returned towards their targets but that much remains to be done in Austria, Greece and Germany. Using linear and asymmetric panel VECM models, we find that the speed of convergence of external imbalances is much faster in deficit countries than in surplus ones. These results suggest that the adjustment of intra-European imbalances has to take place in both surplus and deficit countries and should be particularly substantial in the former. This revived the old debate of how to get the surplus countries to adjust.     

Sustainability of current accounts: evidence from the quantile unit-root test

Regarding the stationarity of current accounts, previous studies used panel unit-root tests to improve the power of augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) test. This paper applies a quantile autoregression (QAR) approach to improve ADF test in the presence of outliers, and found that first, the stationarity was present in a QAR framework, rather than ADF test. Second, current accounts exhibited symmetric (e.g. Taiwan) and asymmetric patterns, which showed that positive shocks in larger quantiles induce current accounts to adjust towards a long-term equilibrium for Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore. Japan exhibited an asymmetric pattern in response to negative shocks in smaller quantiles.     

Structural current accounts in the European Union countries: cross-sectional exploration

This paper investigates structural determinants of the current account balance and assesses whether the current accounts in the European Union countries were consistent with the calculated structural current accounts between 1995 and 2017. We estimate current account regressions using cross-sectional data for 94 countries in 2008–2016 and confirm the main findings with panel data estimates. We document that the current account depends on the real exchange rate in a nonlinear way. The real exchange rate affects the current account at low income levels, but it ceases to be important at high income levels. Based on structural current account estimates for the European Union countries, we document that after the 2008 crisis current accounts adjusted towards structural current accounts in deficit countries, but persisted above structural current accounts in surplus countries.     

Accounting year-end dispersion and seasonality in the Japanese corporate bond market

Using monthly yield data on straight bonds, this article investigates seasonality in the Japanese corporate bond market. A statistical examination of spreads between the yield of each bond and a bond market index reveals that the yield spread consistently decreases from April to August, whereas it increases from September to December. Because accounting year-ends for most investors in Japan are concentrated in either March or December, this seasonality supports the hypotheses of tax-loss selling and window dressing. Moreover, the seasonality becomes more pronounced as the debt rating declines, consistent with the findings in previous studies investigating the US bond market.     

给自然资源算笔账

我们平常所说的宝贵的大自然，在某种意义上，其宝贵程度是可以“计算”的。在经济学家和环境科学家眼中，一项自然资源所提供的产品和服务的价值是很多方面的。比如，一大片淡水或咸水湿地所提供的服务是这样计算的：许多鱼类在湿地中产卵，小鱼在那里度过生命的开始阶段，全世界每年捕鱼量为1亿吨，价值500亿到1000亿美元。湿地可能会有助于生产这种利润十分丰厚的产品。但是，一个湿地为全球捕鱼量所做的贡献可不只是这些。仅美国的淡水消遣性垂钓业的鱼类价值就高达160亿美元，另外还有460亿美元由该行业的相关雇员产生。因此，除了为你…     

What accounts for the Chilean saving 'miracle'?

This paper examines the recent saving performance of the Chileaneconomy in the light of its long-run (1940–96) trends.The first conclusion that can be derived from the data is thatmost of the increase in private saving since the mid-1980s isdue to business saving. Household saving turns out to be a stationaryvariable with zero mean. Since business saving has a unit root,households do not seem to take the saving of firms into accountwhen making their own saving decisions. Within the theoreticalframework of a model of business investment with liquidity constraints,we estimate a VAR for business saving, private investment, publicsaving and foreign saving (the current account deficit). Weare able to determine that business saving is unaffected bypublic saving, but that, in the long run, foreign saving andbusiness saving are perfect substitutes. Private investment,business saving and foreign saving are jointly determined. Thepolicy conclusions are that policies that stimulate investmentare likely to lead to an increase in private saving, that policiesaimed at raising household saving will be ineffective, and thatincreases in public saving are very powerful for increasingdomestic saving in the long run.     

Accounting for Ecosystems

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment documented the importance of ecosystem services. It is therefore important to include these services in the national system of economic accounts. This requires estimation of “accounting prices” for ecosystems, that is, the marginal value of a change in the size of the system. This raises a number of questions: What do we mean by the “size” of the system? What is the dynamics of the system? How do we quantify the impacts on services from a change in the size of the system and finally how do we value these impacts? We discuss these questions in a few examples of ecosystems, and valuation as such is not the major problem. The major problem is the lack of information of the appropriate dynamic model for most systems. We therefore suggest that economists and ecologists should set priorities on which ecosystems should be the first objects for study for these; we should test the possibilities of estimating the accounting prices.     

Accounting for Stability

There is no consensus about the causes of the reduction in businesscycle volatility seen in many major economies over the lastdecade. Using stylised models of the economies of the US, Euroarea, UK and Japan, we argue that economic stability has beenfostered by improved monetary policy and by associated changesin the behaviour of inflation, which has itself led to a reductionin the volatility of economic shocks. Our projections suggestthat a number of major economies could continue to enjoy anunusual degree of stability, granted average luck and currentinstitutions. (JEL E3, E52, F01)     

A research agenda for improving national Ecological Footprint accounts

Nation-level Ecological Footprint accounts are currently produced for more than 150 nations, with multiple calculations available for some nations. The data sets that result from these national assessments typically serve as the basis for Footprint calculations at smaller scales, including those for regions, cities, businesses, and individuals. Global Footprint Network's National Footprint Accounts, supported and used by more than 70 major organizations worldwide, contain the most widely used national accounting methodology today. The National Footprint Accounts calculations are undergoing continuous improvement as better data becomes available and new methodologies are developed. In this paper, a community of active Ecological Footprint practitioners and users propose key research priorities for improving national Ecological Footprint accounting. For each of the proposed improvements, we briefly review relevant literature, summarize the current state of debate, and suggest approaches for further development. The research agenda will serve as a reference for a large scale, international research program devoted to furthering the development of national Ecological Footprint accounting methodology.     

Generational accounts for Belgium: fiscal sustainability at a glance

This paper uses generational accounts to analyse the long term sustainability of Belgian public finances. We derive age-profiles of detailed tax and expenditure categories from micro data and microsimulation models, and plug them into a long run demographic projection. We assess fiscal long term sustainability under current fiscal and budgetary policy for the base year 2010, and perform simulations of counterfactuals to determine the relative contribution of the most important factors of the long run unsustainability. This update of the generational accounts for Belgium shows that, not unexpectedly, the budgetary situation in Belgium violates the intertemporal budget constraint and hence is unsustainable in the long run. The current level of explicit debt, however, only plays a minor role in explaining this sustainability problem. Ageing and the related increase in age related expenditures are the main drivers of the long run fiscal imbalance and the high level of implicit debt. We disentangle the Belgian generational accounts into their regional components and show that the major explanation for regional differences in generational accounts is not divergent demographic projections, but the wide differences in socio-economic situations, as revealed by the region specific age-profiles.     

Oil price uncertainty and the business cycle: Accounting for the influences of global supply and demand within a VAR GARCH-in-mean framework

ABSTRACT

This article reinvestigates the influence of oil price uncertainty on real economic activity in the United States using a four-variable VAR GARCH-in-mean asymmetric BEKK model. In contrast to previous studies in this area, the analysis focuses on business cycle fluctuations and we control for global supply and demand factors that might affect the real price of oil, its volatility as well as the US economy. We find that – even after accounting for these factors – oil price uncertainty still has a highly significant negative influence on the US business cycle. Our computations show that the effect is economically important during several periods, mostly after a significant variance shift in the mid-1980s. We simultaneously estimate the effect on the global business cycle but find that it is comparatively weak. Finally, significant spillover effects in the GARCH model suggest that oil price volatility is a gauge and channel of transmission of more general macroeconomic shocks and uncertainty. These linkages are particularly strong in case of unexpected bad news.     

On the many accounts of public happiness

Economists of the HEIRS association for Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations promote a better understanding of the fundamental importance of sociality for people’s happiness. The 2013 conference on “Public Happiness” did justice to this goal and provided an overview of stimulating new developments in the study of people’s well-being. The special issue focuses on the one hand on social comparison processes that most naturally emerge if people form interpersonal connections. On the other hand, it contributes to the conceptualization of the many different accounts of public happiness.     

Medical savings accounts (MSAs)--big benefits for small business

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, passed by Congress last year, implemented a four-year pilot project that allows employees of small businesses to set up tax-free interest-bearing medical savings accounts. These accounts offer advantages for both employees and employers     

Accounting for India's forest wealth

In this paper, we account for forest wealth in India. Changes in the timber and carbon wealth embodied in these forests are related to important green national accounting aggregates such as genuine saving and the change in wealth per capita. Important accounting issues include the timing of carbon releases that occur when forests are disturbed, as well as the valuation of these releases. Our empirical findings suggest that while India's forest wealth is substantial, net changes in this wealth are arguably not so large at least in relation to GNP. However, when viewed in the context of the wealth-diluting effects of population growth this implies a far larger additional savings effort is required to cover the (net) loss in forest values than otherwise appears to be the case. Finally, we examine ways in which the accounting approach that we adopt can be reconciled with approaches which stress conserving forest wealth.     

战略管理会计方法体系研究

虽然从战略管理会计诞生至今已近30年,但是对战略管理会计方法的研究仍局限在对各方法的介绍和描述,未能形成体系。本文以EBSCO数据库和中国知网——中国学术期刊网络出版总库中有关战略管理会计的文献为样本,运用统计分析选取了较受关注的十种战略管理会计方法,并从战略流程角度考察所选方法的内在联系,试图构建适于企业战略管理需要的战略管理会计方法体系。     

新会计制度下民间非营利组织捐赠业务的会计处理

对于民间非营利组织,捐赠收入是其主要的资金来源之一,如何进行会计处理十分重要。根据我国2005年1月1日开始实施的《民间非营利组织会计制度》,民间非营利组织取得的捐赠确认为收入,并分为无条件的捐赠和附条件的捐赠,无条件捐赠在捐赠收到时确认收入;附条件的捐赠,应当在取得捐赠资产控制权时确认收入;同时应根据资产形态按历史成本或公允价值确定入账价值,并在会计报表中反映。