Sollen nach International Accounting Standards Abschlußaufwendungen aktiviert und eine Schwankungsrückstellung passiviert werden?

The aim of the International Accounting Standards Committee is to formulate and to publish accounting standards to be observed in the presentation of financial statements and to promote their worldwide acceptance and observance. There is only one International Accounting Standard (IAS) which treats a particular industry (IAS 30 for banks); for insurance companies does not exist a specific IAS. An International Accounting Standards ?Insurance“ is being developed at the moment. The discussion of the Steering Committee for the IAS ?Insurance“ regarding special topics, e.g. acquisition costs or the equalisation provision, was recently published in an ?Issues paper“. The objective of this study is to answer the question if acquisition costs should be deferred and amortized over the policy period and if an equalisation provision is allowed in the system of the IAS. For this purpose acquisition costs must be classified as an asset and an equalisation provision must be classified as a liability. In contrast to the standpoint of the Steering Committee this study shows that acquisition costs meet the requirements of the asset definition in the Framework to the IAS and an equalisation provision meets the requirements of the liability definiton.     

Pricing and supplier concentration in the private client segment of the audit market: Market power or competition?

This study differs from prior audit-pricing studies as (1) it focuses on the issue of price competition in the (small) private client segment of the audit market and (2) addresses the questions of whether and how the audit-pricing model changed in that market between 1989 and 1997. Given the significant increases in market concentration and two big audit firm mergers in that period, we try to assess whether price competition (market power) has increased (decreased) or decreased (increased). We use Belgian data on privately owned companies from 1989 and 1997 for our analyses. We find that audit fees are significantly associated with the incumbent auditor's market share both in 1989 and 1997. Our results are in line with prior studies on public client samples and hence do not support prior assumptions that there are no price premia charged by large auditors in the small client segment of the audit market. As to the evolution of audit pricing in the private client segment of the Belgian audit market between 1989 and 1997, we find that the impact of various audit fee determinants changed significantly and report evidence supportive of increased price competition.     

Physical activity and childhood obesity

More than one-third of American children and teenagers are considered overweight or obese. Unfortunately, obesity is often a persistent and dangerous health condition that is costly to manage. It is one of the leading causes of preventable death and combating the condition has become a national priority. To this end the two most common recommendations are: eat a healthier diet and increase physical activity. Using data from both the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adult files, this study examines the relationship between physical activity and the persistence of childhood obesity. More specifically, Cox-proportional hazard techniques are used to quantify the impact a child’s physical activity has on the likelihood that they exit an overweight or obese state. Results indicate that being physically active reduces the probability that an overweight or obese child remains overweight or obese. Strikingly, there is not a significant difference between children who are active daily and those who are active a few times per week, suggesting that being active may be more important than the frequency of activity.     

The Creativity‐Performance Relationship: How Rewarding Creativity Moderates the Expression of Creativity

Researchers have argued that creativity is intrinsically motivated, and that rewarding creativity can stifle creativity. Using a sample of 310 employees reporting to 50 different supervisors, we instead show that rewarding creativity influences the relationship between creativity and performance by changing the nature of expressed creativity. We do this by examining novelty and usefulness as separate dimensions. High perceived reward enhances the relationship between novelty and performance while diminishing the relationship between usefulness and performance. The moderating effect of reward for creativity on the relationship between creativity and performance was not observed when we operationalized creativity as an integrated, unidimensional construct. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Dynamic adaptation to resource scarcity and backstop availability: theory and application to groundwater*

In this paper we analyse the optimal management of a renewable resource (groundwater) with stock‐dependent extraction cost and a backstop substitute, facing two‐sector linear demands. Application to the Kiti region in Cyprus demonstrates the model's performance and is used to test for the difference between optimal and myopic behaviour. It is found that the presence of a backstop resource diminishes the importance of optimal dynamic behaviour, whereas in the absence of backstop the optimal control solution yields a value for social welfare significantly larger than the myopic policy.     

Convergence in Income Inequality: Further Evidence from the Club Clustering Methodology across States in the U.S.

This paper contributes to the sparse literature on inequality convergence by empirically testing convergence across states in the U.S. This sample period encompasses a series of different periods that the existing literature discusses -- the Great Depression (1929–1944), the Great Compression (1945–1979), the Great Divergence (1980-present), the Great Moderation (1982–2007), and the Great Recession (2007–2009). This paper implements the relatively new method of panel convergence testing, recommended by Phillips and Sul (2007). This method examines the club convergence hypothesis, which argues that certain countries, states, sectors, or regions belong to a club that moves from disequilibrium positions to their club-specific steady-state positions. We find strong support for convergence through the late 1970s and early 1980s, and then evidence of divergence. The divergence, however, moves the dispersion of inequality measures across states only a fraction of the way back to their levels in the early part of the twentieth century.     

How Does Sustainable Development of Supply Chains Make Firms Lean,Green and Profitable? A Resource Orchestration Perspective

This paper theorizes and tests the effects of sustainable development of supply chains on cost‐reduction (lean), environmental (green) and financial (profitable) performance. Based on the resource orchestration theory, we argue that internal, supplier and customer sustainable development each orchestrate different types of resource and therefore their effects vary. Structural equation modeling of data from a survey of 203 Thai manufacturers was used to test a new theoretical model. Results confirm that financial performance was achieved through cost reduction created by customer sustainable development supported by internal and supplier sustainable development. On the other hand, better environmental performance created by internal sustainable development generated no financial gains. However, internal, supplier and customer sustainable development positively affected each other, and by acting together they made firms lean, green and profitable. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Same sound,same preference? Investigating sound symbolism effects in international brand names

This study replicates the interaction by language, vowel sound, and car type as first shown by Shrum, Lowrey, Luna, Lerman, and Liu (2012). Contrasting Lowrey and Shrum (2007), however, English speaking natives generally prefer front vowels (such as [e] in bed) regardless of car type. Extending these studies to consonants, most subjects prefer plosives (such as [k] in key) in international brand names for SUVs. A further extension shows a common pattern of sounds eliciting product attribute associations across languages.