A Proposal for Teaching Introductory and Intermediate Accounting in an Environment of International Financial Reporting Standards and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for Private Enterprises*

Teaching introductory and intermediate financial accounting in an environment of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) and generally accepted accounting principles for private enterprises (GAAP for PEs) is an issue facing faculty at Canadian universities and colleges. We present a number of options and then propose an approach that we believe provides a balanced treatment of accounting standards for both publicly accountable and private enterprises. This approach focuses on the concepts and principles that are common to both IFRS and GAAP for PEs. We argue that this approach encourages deep learning resulting in students’ better understanding of accounting standards and their application.     

Catering through Nominal Share Prices

We propose and test a catering theory of nominal stock prices. The theory predicts that when investors place higher valuations on low‐price firms, managers respond by supplying shares at lower price levels, and vice versa. We confirm these predictions in time‐series and firm‐level data using several measures of time‐varying catering incentives. More generally, the results provide unusually clean evidence that catering influences corporate decisions, because the process of targeting nominal share prices is not well explained by alternative theories.     

Smoothing the waves of pension funding: Could changes in funding rules help avoid cyclical under‐funding?

Defined benefit pensions are still an important part of retirement income security for 44 million people. After 2000, these plans experienced extreme difficulties. Although the magnitude of the problem was unprecedented, its causes were not. Interest rate and asset prices decline in a recession, when earnings are low. Pension funding rules reflect this regularity. This requires additional contributions when times are bad. We address this counter‐cyclicality through three proposed rule changes. We use a simulation model to evaluate these. Our results indicate that counter‐cyclicality would have diminished, while funding adequacy would have improved.     

Firms' Voluntary Recognition of Stock-Based Compensation Expense

We investigate factors associated with firms' decisions in 2002 and early 2003 to recognize stock‐based compensation expense under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 123. We find that the likelihood of SFAS 123 expense recognition is significantly related to the extent of the firm's participation in capital markets, the private incentives of top management and members of the board of directors, the level of information asymmetry, and political costs. Although recognizing firms have significantly smaller SFAS 123 expense, we find no significant incremental relation between recognition likelihood and SFAS 123 expense magnitude after controlling for other factors that we expect explain the recognition decision. We also find positive and significant announcement returns for earlier announcing firms, particularly those stating that increased earnings transparency motivates their decision.     

有的放矢意大利消费信贷集团FIDITALIA采用了Oracle解决方案用于其直接的市场营销活动

作为意大利最大的消费信贷集团之一,Fiditalia一直非常重视它的客户.因此,迅速、高效的客户数据管理对于Fiditalia的成功至关重要. "在我们这个竞争非常激烈的行业中,"Fiditalia的直销经理Michel Billon说,"我们的前台和后台办公系统的速度、简单性和灵活性必须不断提高.我们的发展取决于我们的IT资源为内部和外部用户提供高可靠数据支持的能力."     

Book Reviews

Technical Insights, Inc. Annual report on research and development… 1982: the year that was… 1983: the year to come
Project Management
Industrial R&D Management—the modern issues
Trends in Information Transfer
Information Society, For Richer, For Poorer
Cybernetics and Systems Research     

Identification of New Keynesian Phillips Curves from a Global Perspective

This paper is concerned with the estimation of New Keynesian Phillips Curves (NKPC) and focuses on two issues: the weak instrument problem and the characterization of the steady states. It proposes some solutions from a global perspective. Using a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model steady states are estimated as long-horizon expectations and valid instruments are constructed from the global variables as weighted averages. The proposed estimation strategy is illustrated using estimates of the NKPC for eight developed industrial countries. The GVAR generates global factors that are valid instruments and help alleviate the weak instrument problem. The steady states also reflect global influences and any long-run theoretical relationships that might prevail within and across countries in the global economy. The GVAR measure of the steady state performed better than the HP measure, and the use of foreign instruments substantially increased the precision of the estimates of the output coefficient.