Integrated Reporting: A Review of Developments and their Implications for the Accounting Curriculum

Integrated reporting (IR) is a major development in a number of sustainability-related accounting initiatives and, if widely adopted, will require significant developments in professional and university accounting curricula. These will include: a strategic rather than operational or transactional focus; longer- rather than short-term outlook; prospective rather than retrospective analysis; qualitative commentary as well as quantitative information; and reports on wider business performance metrics rather than on narrower external financial reporting data or audit compliance. This paper reports on ACCA's support of and response to the latest initiatives in IR, in particular the impact this will have on the education and training of accountants in order to reflect these new principles to prepare the twenty-first-century accountant for a much more challenging role in the near future. These developments can only be in the wider public interest of improving the relevance of information for decision-making, for all stakeholders, and allow greater efficiency in the allocation of financial and other resources and in adding public value.     

Are the 'Poor' Different? The Internal Characteristics of Local Authorities in the Five Comprehensive Performance Assessment Groups

The fate of careers, morale, financial assistance and future freedoms depend on English local councils' places in Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) groups. This article explains why the organizational attributes of local authorities are weak predictors of CPA outcomes. The authors' conclusions sit uncomfortably with the overall aims of CPA and raise important questions about the relationship between performance ratings and intervention. The article calls for more reliable data with which to classify local authorities.     

Financial reporting by charities: a matched case study analysis from four countries

This paper analyses financial reporting requirements applicable to charities in four jurisdictions—Australia; England; Ireland; New Zealand—using case study analysis which compares the actual financial statements of four charities operating in the same field and with similar levels of total income. The authors highlight common issues and implications in terms of the concepts underpinning not-for-profit organization (NPO) financial reporting and argue the case for harmonized international NPO accounting standards.     

Integration between the London and New York Stock Exchanges, 1825–1925

In this article the integration between the London and New York Stock Exchanges is analysed during the era when they were still developing as asset markets. The domestic securities on both exchanges showed little sustained integration, even when controlling for the different characteristics of stocks, which implies that the pricing of securities in the US and UK was still being driven by local factors. These results place a limit on the view that the pre‐First World War period was the first era of globalization in terms of capital markets. However, there was considerable integration between New York and those listings on London that operated internationally. This suggests that the listing of foreign securities may be one of the primary mechanisms driving asset market integration.     

Who financed the expansion of the equity market? Shareholder clienteles in Victorian Britain

Who financed the great expansion of the Victorian equity market, and what attracted them to invest? Using data on 453 firm-years and over 172,000 shareholders, we find that the largest providers of capital were rentiers, men with no formal occupation who relied on investment income. We also see a substantial growth in women investors as time progressed. In terms of clientele effects, we find that rentiers invested in large firms, whilst businessmen were the venture capitalists of young, regional enterprises. Women and the middle classes preferred safe investments, whilst financiers and institutional investors were speculators in foreign companies. Our results may help to explain the growth of new types of assets catering for particular clienteles, and the development of managerial policies on dividends and share issues.     

Corruption as an Occupational Choice: Endogenous Corruption and Tax Policy

Corruption is endemic in many countries, and empirical studies have demonstrated how it impacts on macroeconomic indicators. Theoretical studies have generally assumed an exogenously given proportion of the population are corrupt or that the public sector is fixed in size; far fewer explore how corruption emerges endogenously. We endogenize corruption as an occupational choice. Workers choose private or public employment; public employees can be honest or corrupt. Corruption is subject to a social sanction that results in a loss of self-esteem. Those who care little about the social sanction choose to be corrupt. When a firm meets a corrupt public employee it pays a bribe to secure a reduction in the tax rate. The economy has two self-sustaining equilibria with different levels of corruption. Corruption reduces tax revenue and the tax rate that maximizes revenue. An increase in the social sanction reduces corruption but also reduces tax revenues if the economy is in a high-corruption equilibrium. Paying a wage premium to public sector workers can result in all public sector workers being corrupt. Public sector audits to detect corrupt workers always reduce corruption but can only increase welfare when they are cheap to conduct and the economy is in a low-corruption equilibrium.     

Is there a trade-off between the employment and wages of unskilled African South Africans?

The possible trade-off between employment and wages has characterised most of South Africa’s labour market debates, particularly with regards to decent wages versus unemployment. In this article we explore the relationship between labour market earnings and the level of employment among African birth cohorts using labour force data from 1997 to 2011. We find that the association between an increase in the proportion of unskilled employed in a birth cohort and earnings is mediated by the sector of employment. While some sectors exhibit the expected negative association, there is a robust positive relationship between the first two quartiles of the earnings distribution within birth cohorts and the proportion of the birth cohort who are employed in unskilled occupations in the manufacturing and trade sectors. Because a range of market forces determine this relationship, further research is needed to unpack the reasons for such varied outcomes in order to better inform the debates on labour market interventions like the proposed National Minimum Wage and to appreciate the potential impact of such policy interventions on wages and employment.