Nonmonetary asset exchanges revisited: An updated pedagogical approach

This paper reviews current GAAP for nonmonetary asset exchanges, presents a pedagogical approach that instructors and textbook authors can use to clarify their coverage of this topic, and highlights intermediate accounting textbooks that provide complete, accurate coverage of this topic.     

Social Security with Heterogeneous Populations Subject to Demographic Shocks

In a previous paper, we showed how a pay-as-you-go social security scheme, based on voluntary contributions, can be an appropriate institution to reach an optimal sharing of risks among generations in the presence of demographic uncertainties. We study here the functioning of such schemes when there are different population strata, with different demographic shocks and wages. We show that while a collective voluntary pay-as-you-go scheme can provide efficient intergenerational risk sharing, it is likely to be destabilized by pensions funds specialized by agents' types. This is true both when there is a complete set of contingent markets, where the risk pooling capabilities of a collective fund are potentially of less interest, and when markets are incomplete. In this last circumstance, a collective fund may help the living agents to share their intragenerational risks. However, we show that the resulting allocation does not Pareto dominate the outcome of individual funds by agent types, and that there are incentives for agents to separate from any collective organization.     

Basel’s value-at-risk capital requirement regulation: An efficiency analysis

We analyze the optimal portfolio policies of expected utility maximizing agents under VaR Capital Requirement (VaR-CR) regulation in comparison to the optimal policy under exogenously-imposed VaR Limit (VaR-L) and Limited-Expected-Loss (LEL) regulations. With VaR-CR regulation the agent strategy consists of simultaneous decisions on both the portfolio VaR and on the implied amount of required eligible capital. As a result, the performance of VaR-CR regulation depends on its design (the parameter n) and the agent preferences. We show that an optimal VaR-CR regulation allows the regulator on the one hand, to completely eliminate the exposure to the largest losses, which may jeopardize the existence of the institution, and on the other hand, to restrain the portfolio exposure to all other losses. These results rationalize the current Basel regulations. However, the analysis shows also that there is an optimal level of required eligible capital from the regulator standpoint. Counter-intuitively, any requirement above this optimal level is inefficient as it leads to a smaller amount of actually maintained eligible capital and thereby to a larger exposure to the most adverse states of the world. Unfortunately, the current Basel’s range of required levels (n = 3–4) is within this inefficient range. Moreover, with an inefficient regulation the agent might employ an inefficient reporting and disclosure procedure.     

Comparing Alternative Hedge Accounting Standards: Shareholders' Perspective

We study the economic consequences of alternative hedge accounting rules in terms of managerial hedging decisions and wealth effects for shareholders. The rules we consider include the fair-value and cash-flow hedge accounting methods prescribed by the recent SFAS No. 133. We illustrate that the accounting method used influences the manager's hedge decision. We show that under no-hedge accounting, the hedge choice is different from the optimal economic hedge the firm would make under symmetric and public information. However, under a certain definition of fair-value hedge accounting, the hedging decision preserves the optimal economic hedge. We then demonstrate that long-term and future shareholders prefer a certain definition of fair-value hedge accounting to no-hedge accounting, while short-term shareholders prefer either approach depending on risk preferences and the level of uncertainty. We speculate about circumstances in which a manager would choose not to adopt fair-value hedge accounting when he has the option not to do so.     

El sindicalismo como vía de ciudadanía laboral. El caso de las cuidadoras y cuidadores migrantes en Israel

El artículo examina la viabilidad del sindicalismo para ciertos trabajadores migrantes del cuidado. Primero revisa las concepciones básicas de la acción sindical y después, apoyándose en un análisis detallado de una campaña reciente de sindicación de cuidadores migrantes en Israel, demuestra la aportación única del enfoque sindical frente al de otras asociaciones cívicas que apoyan a estos trabajadores: a pesar de los muchos problemas que entraña su sindicación, en razón de la naturaleza de su trabajo y de obstáculos jurídicos e institucionales, el sindicalismo es la única vía para dotar a los trabajadores migrantes de ciudadanía laboral y de agencia política.     

Systèmes De Gestion Des Ressources Humaines Et Performance Organisationnelle

Résumé ** :  La gestion des ressources humaines et son effet sur la performance de la firme représentent encore de nos jours une zone d'indétermination. Plusieurs théories tentent d'ailleurs d'expliquer cette importante relation. C'est l'approche configurationnelle des ressources humaines qui servira de filtre théorique à cette recherche. Validant cette approche auprès de 46 entreprises financières canadiennes, nous avons démontré, en partie du moins, la robustesse de cette approche stratégique de gestion des ressources humaines. Il ne fait aucun doute qu'une telle approche représente une alternative stratégique intéressante, capable d'accroître l'efficacité de nos firmes dans ce monde économique impitoyable et mondialisé.     

Pay‐Level Satisfaction and Employee Outcomes: The Moderating Effect of Employee‐Involvement Climate

The present study examined employee‐involvement climate (i.e., information‐sharing and decision‐making climate) as a moderator of the relationship between pay‐level satisfaction and employee outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, affective commitment, and turnover intention). Survey data were collected from 22,662 Belgian employees, representing 134 organizations. The hypotheses derived from distributive justice theory and from research on the meaning of pay received partial support. Multilevel analyses revealed that a decision‐making climate buffered the negative effects of low pay‐level satisfaction, and that an information‐sharing climate exacerbated the negative effects of low pay‐level satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications of this differential moderating effect are discussed.     

Consumers’ willingness to pay for eco-friendly apples under different labels: Evidences from a lab experiment

An experiment was conducted in France to evaluate the impact of health and environmental information on consumers’ choices between conventional and organic apples. Results show that additional and precise messages about both pesticides use and pesticides residues significantly impact consumers’ choices between both products. The experiment also studied the effect of a new label signaling apples that only use few pesticides compared to conventional apples. With elicited willingness-to-pay, we show that the introduction of this new label increases the average participants’ surplus whatever the information context for participants, because of a higher quality compared to conventional apples and a lower price compared to organic products. In order to complement this label, a minimum-quality standard imposing the use of few pesticides is socially optimal when initial participants’ knowledge is limited.