Supporting ALARP decision making by cost benefit analysis and multiattribute utility theory

Current guidance in the UK and elsewhere indicate upper and target risk limits for the operation of nuclear plant in terms of individual risk per annum. ‘As low as reasonably practicable’ (ALARP) arguments are used to justify the acceptance or rejection of policies that lead to risk changes between these limits. The suitability of cost‐benefit analysis (CBA) and multiattribute utility theory (MAUT) are assessed for performing ALARP (‘as low as reasonably possible’) assessments, in particular within the nuclear industry. Four problems stand out in current CBA applications to ALARP, concerning the determination of prices of safety gains or detriments, the valuation of group and individual risk, calculations using ‘disproportionality’, and the use of discounting to trade‐off risks through time. This last point has received less attention in the past but is important because of the growing interest in risk‐informed regulation in which policies extend over several timeframes and distribute the risk unevenly over these, or in policies that lead to a nonuniform risk within a single timeframe (such as maintenance policies). The problems associated with giving quantitative support to such decisions are discussed. It is argued that multiattribute utility methods (MAUT) provide an alternative methodology to CBA which enable the four problems described above to be addressed in a more satisfactory way. Through sensitivity analysis MAUT can address the perceptions of all stakeholder groups, facilitating constructive discussion and elucidating the key points of disagreement. It is also argued that by being explicitly subjective it provides an open, auditable and clear analysis in contrast to the illusory objectivity of CBA. CBA seeks to justify a decision by using a common basis for weights (prices), while MAUT recognizes that different parties may want to give different valuations. It then allows the analyst to explore the ways in which different parties might (or might not) come to the same conclusion even when weighting items differently.     

The Year in Review: Economics at the Antitrust Division, 2005–2006

This paper covers the activities of the Economic Analysis Group (EAG) of the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, during 2005–2006. It describes the economic analysis undertaken by EAG in several important investigations, appellate matters, and other activities as an advocate for competition.The views contained herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Department of Justice.     

Share price anticipation of earnings and management's discussion of operations and financing

This paper combines research on the measurement of disclosure quality and the measurement of share price anticipation of earnings to produce a new test of the usefulness of the information disclosed in management discussions of operations and financing for predicting future earnings. Market-Based Accounting Research has shown that earnings changes are anticipated and impounded in prices well before the financial year for which earnings are reported. This price anticipation leads to downward biased earnings response coefficients (ERCs) in the commonly estimated regression model of returns on contemporaneous earnings changes. We exploit predictable differences in the biasedness of the ERC estimate across firm-years to test the hypothesis that share prices are better informed when the annual report contains a detailed discussion of the firm's operations and financing. Our results suggest that such voluntary disclosure may have been useful in predicting future earnings changes. The effect would appear to be strongest (1) in models that examine one-period-ahead and two-period-ahead share price anticipation and (2) when we employ a disclosure index that captures forward-looking information.     

Firm characteristics and audit committees complying with ’best practice‘ membership guidelines

This study investigates demand and supply characteristics associated with firms that voluntarily established audit committees meeting ‘best practice’ membership guidelines. We focus on a set of best practice criteria rather than on the separate elements of the best practice criteria as in past studies. We conduct our tests using a sample of New Zealand listed companies that, relative to firms in other capital markets, are smaller and have more concentrated ownership. This setting differs from prior research because we expect the costs of voluntarily achieving best practice to be reasonably high. The results show that demand factors are not significantly related to the presence of an audit committee that conforms with best practice membership guidelines. However, supply factors (i.e. those firms with larger and more independent boards) are more likely to form audit committees that meet best practice. These results suggest that compliance costs will be greater for firms with smaller and less independent boards of directors if they are required to comply with best practice requirements.     

Executive Compensation: A Model of Disclosure Choice

Recent public policy debates have led to increased calls for full transparency of executive compensation. However, in practice, many firms are reluctant to disclose the full details of how they link executive compensation to performance. One possible reason for lack of full disclosure is that managers use their power to hide the details of their compensation plan in order to disguise opportunistic rent extraction. If this is the reason for secrecy, then public policy designed to force firms to provide full disclosure is unlikely to be resisted by shareholders. However, another possible explanation for less than full transparency is that some degree of secrecy about executive compensation may be in the interest of the company and its shareholders. If this explanation is correct, then public policy moves to increase transparency may be met by counter moves designed to protect managers and shareholders from such policies. In this paper we investigate if full disclosure of executive compensation arrangements is always optimal for shareholders. We develop a model where optimal executive remuneration solves a moral hazard problem. However, the degree to which the moral hazard problem affects the shareholders depends on hidden information, so that disclosure of the executive compensation scheme will typically reveal the hidden information, which can be harmful to shareholders. The model derives, therefore, the optimal disclosure policy and the optimal remuneration scheme. We find that the shareholders are better off pre‐committing not to disclose the executive compensation scheme whenever possible. Executive directors are shown to be better off too in the absence of disclosure of executive compensation schemes. An argument for mandating disclosure is that it provides better information to shareholders but our analysis demonstrates that disclosure does not necessarily achieve this objective. The results suggest that less than full disclosure can be in the interest of shareholders, the reason for this being that disclosures cannot be made selectively to shareholders but will also be made to strategic opponents. This will be the case if the board of directors and the remuneration committee includes enough independent directors. Whether or not non‐disclosure to shareholders is in their interest is however an empirical matter involving a trade‐off between the proprietary costs associated with disclosure to shareholders and the costs of potential collusion between executive and non‐executive directors associated with non‐disclosure.     

Education

A great deal has been written about mergers in industry, but those in the public sector have received much less attention. This article sets out to redress the balance, analysing 30 recent merger examples in the higher education (HE) sector. It draws parallels with the wider literature, and includes recommendations for practitioners.     

Generic Skills in Audit Education

The academic literature and higher education benchmark statements identify groups of skills that are desirable both for students seeking employment and for employers seeking to recruit students. Professional accounting education pronouncements also stipulate skills that are necessary for an individual to possess in order to act as a competent accountant and auditor. Through a questionnaire survey, this research examines: (i) which of these skills audit and accounting practitioners expect UK universities to teach; (ii) which skills audit and accounting academics believe are important for students to acquire; (iii) which skills audit academics believe that employers require; and (iv) which skills audit academics teach in the UK. Institutional theory is used to develop and interpret this research.