IT-Leistungsverrechnung

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Purchasing Power Parity under the Gold Standard

Long-run purchasing power parity (LRPPP), the basis of most open economy macroeconomic models, has proved difficult to back up empirically. However, there is one standout exception to the otherwise mixed results. Diebold, Hasted, and Rush (1991) are consistently cited as having found strong evidence of LRPPP by using a fractionally integrated moving-average model whose restrictions are looser than those of traditional unit root tests. We propose structural change rather than fractional integration as a plausible behavior pattern for the data. Using the Bai-Perron (1998) test for multiple structural change, we find mean shifts in each of the real exchange rates. When those shifts are included in the model, the speed of mean reversion is greatly improved. We assert that quick mean reversion around an occasionally changing mean provides a more reasonable representation of the data than does fractional integration.     

Leseliste Top 5: Controlling und Datenqualität

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Assessing financial reporting comparability across institutional settings: The case of pension accounting

The drive for comparability of financial information is to enable users to distinguish similarities and differences in economic activities for an entity over time and between entities so that their resource allocation decisions are facilitated. With the increased globalisation of economic activities, the enhanced international comparability of financial statements is often used as an argument to advance the convergence of local accounting standards to international financial reporting standards (IFRS). Differences in the underlying economic substance of transactions between jurisdictions plus accounting standards allowing alternative treatments may render this expectation of increased comparability unrealistic. Motivated by observations that, as a construct, comparability is under-researched and not well understood, we develop a comparability framework that distinguishes between four types of comparability. In applying this comparability framework to pension accounting in the Australian and USA contexts, we highlight a dilemma: while regulators seek to increase the likelihood that similar events are accounted for similarly, an unintended consequence may be that preparers are forced to apply similar accounting treatment to events that are, in substance, different.     

Contrasting consequences: Bringing charges of sexual harassment compared with other cases of whistleblowing

The phenomenon of whistleblowing seems puzzling in that whistleblowing presumably brings a wrongful practice to the attention of those with power to correct the situation. In this respect, whistleblowers act to serve the public interest in defeating harmful, illegal and unjust practices. Yet these persons suffer vilification and worse, not only from their fellow employees, but from members of the general public as well. Cases in which members of a discriminated minority report instances of job discrimination, and especially instances of sexual harassment resemble other cases in which an employee reports corporate or bureaucratic misdeeds. In the early 1970s those who brought charges of sexual harassment did suffer character assassination, reprisals and difficulties in finding equivalent employment afterwards. But by the mid-1980s, consequences for those bringing discrimination charges, and especially the charge of sexual harassment have come to differ in several important respects from other cases of whistleblowing. Examining the differences, and what seem to be underlying causes of these differences, provides some insight into the factors that set limits to the practice of whistleblowing in a democratic society.Natalie Dandekar teaches in the Philosophy Department at Bentley College. She writes in the areas of women's studies and computer ethics.