Are macroeconomic density forecasts informative?

We consider whether survey density forecasts (such as the inflation and output growth histograms of the US Survey of Professional Forecasters) are superior to unconditional density forecasts. The unconditional forecasts assume that the average level of uncertainty that has been experienced in the past will continue to prevail in the future, whereas the SPF projections ought to be adapted to the current conditions and the outlook at each forecast origin. The SPF forecasts might be expected to outperform the unconditional densities at the shortest horizons, but it transpires that such is not the case for the aggregate forecasts of either variable, or for the majority of the individual respondents for forecasting inflation.     

An analysis of Australian exchange traded options and warrants

This study focuses on the price discovery process in Australian option and warrant markets. Characterizing these two markets in terms of their cost structures and institutional features, we formally test competing price discovery hypotheses. The general findings indicate that the warrants market is the dominant market suggesting that their lower trading cost outweigh their less attractive institutional features. Additionally, we find that idiosyncratic differences among firms may result in a clientele effect thus providing justification for the coexistence of these seemingly redundant markets.     

Creating new growth platforms

Sooner or later, most companies can't attain the growth rates expected by their boards and CEOs and demanded by investors. To some extent, such businesses are victims of their own successes. Many were able to sustain high growth rates for a long time because they were in high-growth industries. But once those industries slowed down, the businesses could no longer deliver the performance that investors had come to take for granted. Often, companies have resorted to acquisition, though this strategy has a discouraging track record. Over time, 65% of acquisitions destroy more value than they create. So where does real growth come from? For the past 12 years, the authors have been researching and advising companies on this issue. With the support of researchers at Harvard Business School and Insead, they instituted a project titled "The CEO Agenda and Growth". They identified and approached 24 companies that had achieved significant organic growth and interviewed their CEOs, chief strategists, heads of R&D, CFOs, and top-line managers. They asked, "Where does your growth come from?" and found a consistent pattern in the answers. All the businesses grew by creating new growth platforms (NGPs) on which they could build families of products and services and extend their capabilities into multiple new domains. Identifying NGP opportunities calls for executives to challenge conventional wisdom. In all the companies studied, top management believed that NGP innovation differed significantly from traditional product or service innovation. They had independent, senior-level units with a standing responsibility to create NGPs, and their CEOs spent as much as 50% of their time working with these units. The payoff has been spectacular and lasting. For example, from 1985 to 2004, the medical devices company Medtronic grew revenues at 18% per year, earnings at 20%, and market capitalization at 30%.     

The Economics of Erosion and Sustainable Practices: The Case of the Saint-Esprit Watershed

This paper examines the economics of the adoption of sustainable production practices for soil erosion control. The research was conducted on three case farms within the Saint‐Esprit watershed in Quebec using a two‐stage process. The first stage involved the use of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) to record erosion characteristics (slope, etc.) for these farmers'fields. This erosion information was then included as input information in the second stage of the process. Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) was used to model both individual farms and the watershed. Increasing erosion constraints were applied to these models to investigate changes in crop production mixes for farms and the watershed. A comparison of the results (farms versus watershed) was used to investigate policy questions concerning an optimal erosion constraint for society. Results generated indicate that farms with higher net incomes would be advantaged by erosion constraints set at the watershed level, whereas farms with lower net revenues would be disadvantaged. Thus, trading of pollution permits could be encouraged. Cet article examine les aspects économiques de l'adoption de pratiques de production durables visant a réduire l'érosion du sol. La recherche fut effectuée sur trois fermes situées dans le has sin du Saint‐Esprit au Québec, et impliqua un processus à deux étapes. Le premier étape consiste en l'utilisation du systéme d'informations géographiques “ SIG ” afin de noter les caractéristiques de l'érosion (pente, etc.) dans ces champs agricoles. Ces renseignements servirent de données au sein du deuxième étape. La méthode de programmation linéaire à nombres entiers mixtes fut employée afin de modéliser les fermes individuelles, ainsi que le bassin. Ensuite, les contraintes d‘érosion furent appliquées sur ces modèles de manière croissante, et ce afin d'étudier les changements dans le melange des productions de cultures pour les fermes et le bassin. Une comparaison des résultats (fermes vs. bassin) fut accomplie pour examiner les questions de politiques pouvant mener à une contrainte d‘érosion optimale pour la société. Les résultats obtenus démontrent que les fermes ayant des revenus nets élevés seraient avantagées par des contraintes d'érosion établies au niveau du bassin, tandis que les fermes aux revenus nets plus bas en seraient désavantagées. En conséquence, l'échange de permis de pollution est recommandé.     

Child survival in East Africa: The impact of preventive health care

Since the mid-1980s or earlier, several East African countries have experienced constant or rising child mortality rates concurrent with social and biomedical improvements of the “Child Survival Revolution”. This study examines whether preventive primary health care enhanced early child survival in the late 1980s and early 1990s in five East African countries. Child mortality rates were considerably lower than they would have been in the absence of specific immunizations, access to safe drinking water, fertility regulation, and frequent antenatal care visits. There was, however, substantial missed opportunity for mortality decline as a result of insufficient use of preventive measures. In particular, universal immunization across these countries could have reduced rates of mortality under age two by as much as one-third. Continued pursuit of the goals of the World Summit for Children appears essential to offset macroeconomic and growing epidemiological constraints to child survival in the region.     

Getting the Floor: Motive-Consistent Strategy and Individual Outcomes in Multi-Party Negotiations

Social motives influence negotiators actions and reactions. In this study we proposed that social motives moderate the relationship between persistence in the use of integrative or distributive negotiation strategy and individual outcomes in 33 four-person mixed-motive negotiations. Cooperative negotiators who persisted in using integrative strategy achieved higher outcomes than those who did not persist. Persistence in the use of integrative strategy did not pay off for individualistic negotiators in this multi-party setting. We theorized that this pattern of results was due to cooperative and individualistic negotiators using strategy differently. We found that cooperative negotiators used more motive-consistent integrative strategy and less motive-inconsistent distributive strategy than individualistic negotiators, whose pattern of strategy use was consistent with their self-interested motives, providing evidence for our motive consistency theory.     

Cultural and socioeconomic constraints on international codes of ethics: Lessons from accounting

This paper provides a framework for the examination of cultural and socioeconomic factors that could impede the acceptance and implementation of a profession's international code of conduct. We apply it to the Guidelines on Ethics for Professional Accountants issued by the International Federation of Accountants (1990). To examine the cultural effects, we use Hofstede's (1980a) four work-related values: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity. The socioeconomic factors are the level of development of the profession and the availability of economic resources. We evaluate the applicability and relevance of the accounting guideline, and discuss the implications for accounting and other professions.Jeffrey R. Cohen is Assistant Professor of Accounting at Boston College. He is a CMA and a KPMG Peat Marwick Faculty Fellow. His articles have appeared in theJournal of Accounting Research, Decision Sciences, The Organizational Behavior Teaching Review, andThe International Journal of Accounting. His work on ethics has appeared inJournal of Business Ethics, Issues in Accounting Education, Management Accounting andThe CPA Journal.Laurie W. Pant is Associate Professor of Accounting at Suffolk University. She holds an MBA and DBA and an M.Ed. She is a CMA and serves on the editorial board ofIssues in Accounting Education. Her articles have appeared inJournal of Business Ethics, Issues in Accounting Education, Management Accounting, The Organizational Behavior Teaching Review, andThe International Journal of Accounting.David J. Sharp is Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Western Ontario. He received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. He is an ACMA and serves on the editorial board ofJournal of International Accounting Auditing and Taxation. His articles have appeared in theMidland Corporate Finance Journal, Sloan Management Review, andThe International Journal of Accounting.     

医保改革面临挑战

当前,许多国家仍存在医疗服务可得性差、医疗成本高昂、公共卫生支出效率低下等问题,医保改革面临重大挑战。医保改革目标存在两难—既要改善人们的健康状况,又要控制支出成本,因而提高公共卫生支出效率是改善社会健康状况的最优选择。各国政府的干预形式和公共卫生支出水平因国别、时间等的不同而变化。财政状况较好的新兴经济体需在保证财政可持续的前提下扩大基本医保覆盖面;发达经济体则应注重提升公共卫生支出的效率并限制支出增长速度。     

Comments on “time of consumption and the time of consumption: Consumer society and the ‘end’ of history”

The essay expounds upon the “problem” of time and its relation to history within the context of consumer culture. Beginning with the premise that consumer culture can be regarded as both the time of image consumption and the image of time consumption (from Debord 1983), the author goes on at length to discuss the concept of time in its three dimensions and then to relate briefly, the implications for the study of history. What follows is a short summary of the author's argument and then a reaction to it based on the idea of liberation.     

Exploring the debate on short-termism: a theoretical and empirical analysis

The debate on short-termism has focused on the economic factors of capital markets and performance measurement systems. Laverty (1996) has advocated the inclusion of individual and organizational dimensions to extend the debate. We reorient Laverty's extended debate by drawing upon a broad management and accounting literature and thereby develop testable theoretical explanations of short-termism. The resulting hypotheses are tested in a telecommunications company. Our findings provide support for Laverty's (1996) argument that individual and organizational factors are important determinants of short-termism. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.