The evolution of Indian accounting standards: Its history and current status with regard to International Financial Reporting Standards

This paper addresses the adoption and applicability of International Accounting Standards (IAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to India. Specifically, the paper highlights some major areas where the country lacked harmonization with IAS in 1993 and the rapid congruence with IAS in the decade that followed. The attempt to achieve congruence with IAS appears to be more a by-product of the country's rapid economic growth rather than its catalyst. However, continued growth and the attraction of foreign capital to domestic ventures will depend on the transparency of the financial dealings. The Institute of the Chartered Accountants of India, (ICAI), India's standard setting body, is increasingly attempting to provide this transparency by revisions and additions to accounting standards, and by Exposure Drafts which aim to bring India more in line with International Financial Reporting Standards.     

Strategic profiles and performance: An empirical test of select key propositions

Competing theories on internal orientation versus external orientation are examined. The relevant theories are amalgamated and condensed into a number of competing propositions that are empirically tested. The findings suggest that the internally oriented businesses as well as the externally oriented businesses underperform the efficient, marketing oriented businesses.     

HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data challenge

The HR world is abuzz with talk of big data and the transformative potential of HR analytics. This article takes issue with optimistic accounts, which hail HR analytics as a ‘must have’ capability that will ensure HR's future as a strategic management function while transforming organisational performance for the better. It argues that unless the HR profession wises up to both the potential and drawbacks of this emerging field and engages operationally and strategically to develop better methods and approaches, it is unlikely that existing practices of HR analytics will deliver transformational change. Indeed, it is possible that current trends will seal the exclusion of HR from strategic, board‐level influence while doing little to benefit organisations and actively damaging the interests of employees.     

INTENSITY OF COMPETITION, ENTRY AND ENTRY DETERRENCE IN RENT SEEKING CONTESTS

In rent seeking contests agents compete over a given amount of resource a prize. To increase the likelihood of winning the prize, the agents expend efforts. This paper addresses the issue of entry to and entry deterrence from rent seeking contest. The main purpose of the analysis is to provide an explanation for the empirical fact that the number of participants in contests is usually small. I also obtain results on the relationship between the intensity of competition in a contest and the amount of the contenders'expenditures.     

Economic Valuation of Health for Environmental Policy: Comparing Alternative Approaches. Introduction and Overview

Protecting human health is a primary goal of environmental policy and economic evaluation of health can help policy-makers judge the relative worth of alternative actions. Economists use two distinct approaches in normatively evaluating health. Whereas environmental economists use benefit-cost analysis supported by monetary valuation in terms of willingness-to-pay, health economists evaluate interventions based on cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis (CEA), using quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) or similar indexes. This paper provides background on the controversy about the relative merits of these approaches and introduces the remaining papers in the special issue. These papers (with one exception) were presented at a conference sponsored by the Department of Economics at the University of Central Florida with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although CEA might not lead to substantially different implications for environmental policy than benefit-cost analysis, and QALY may provide a benefit transfer tool to fill gaps in the morbidity valuation literature, the papers in this issue raise serious concerns about the suitability of QALY-based CEA for environmental regulatory analysis. QALY does not in general appropriately represent individual preferences for health and CEA is neither independent of income distribution nor adequate to assess efficiency.     

Investor protection and analysts’ cash flow forecasts around the world

We find that analysts are more likely to provide cash flow forecasts in countries with weak investor protection. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that market participants demand (and analysts supply) cash flow information when weak investor protection results in earnings that are less likely to reflect underlying economic performance. Our results suggest that information intermediaries respond to market-based incentives to attenuate the adverse effects of country-level institutional factors on earnings’ usefulness. These findings contribute to the literature by shedding light on the institutional determinants of analysts’ research activities, and on the nature of the financial information they generate.     

MODELLING A REGIME‐SHIFTING BEVERIDGE CURVE

This paper offers new insights into Beveridge curve analysis by modelling the unemployment–vacancy rate relationship within a Markov regime‐switching environment in which the probabilities of curve‐shifting are determined endogenously by shift factors. Shift factors include structural factors such as labour market participation and net migration, while cyclical variables include GDP growth, the real rate of interest, and labour productivity. This approach enables us to estimate regime‐specific parameters and to assess the role played by these factors in influencing the transition probabilities of switching between regimes. Using New Zealand data, we show that increases in the participation rate have shifted the Beveridge curve inward, while increases in net migration have shifted the curve outward.