IFRS framework-based case study: DaimlerChrysler – Adopting IFRS accounting policies

This instructional case applies a framework-based approach to explore the concept of comparability in financial reporting and retrospective application of new accounting policies. The DaimlerChrysler (DC) case provides an opportunity for you to research key financial reporting concepts, analyze accounting policy differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS, determine adjustments necessary to convert financial statements from U.S. GAAP to IFRS, and compute and discuss key ratio impacts following financial statement conversion. This case demonstrates that transitioning to IFRS is more than an accounting issue; it provides opportunities for financial restructuring (e.g., Daimler’s amendments to pension plans and its 2007 sale of Chrysler). It also illustrates the importance of professional judgment when initially adopting IFRS accounting policies. Also, despite FASB and IASB convergence efforts, you learn that most of the key differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS identified in DC’s reconciliations continue today. This case helps you to: (1) develop skills to interpret and apply the requirements on first-time adoption of IFRS to a real-world setting; (2) research key differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS and their effects on the financial statements and ratios; and (3) understand significant impacts of the transition to IFRS on businesses and financial statements. Completing the case develops your critical thinking and research/technological skills.     

Accounting for complex investment transactions

This case study exposes students to complex investment transactions. You must document the following: (1) apply the appropriate accounting literature along with its provisions and justify the order of its application; (2) identify and interpret key facts to classify the given investments and relations; (3) discuss the choice of key assumptions that are central to the analysis; (4) interpret the nature of all investment relations with Holdings; discuss all Owner level and below relations; (5) discuss how accounting for varied levels of influence impact the items reported on/off the face of investors' financial statements; (6) from DT's perspective, discuss the potential positives and negatives of its arrangement with Owner with respect to Holdings; and (7) after analyzing additional facts, discuss the nature of the relations of Simon and Herb III with Owner.     

Entrepreneurs' responses to semi-formal illegitimate institutional arrangements

While prior research has discussed how entrepreneurs deal with formal institutional voids and informal institutional environments, little is known about how entrepreneurs respond to institutional arrangements involving illegitimate actors. We define such arrangements as semi-formal illegitimate institutions. Using an exploratory study, we examine one such arrangement in Guatemala City, where organized crime dominates the institutional landscape in which entrepreneurs operate. We examine the strategic responses of these entrepreneurs, and find that they vary in the extent to which they resist semi-formal illegitimate institutions; some entrepreneurs engage in defiance, others avoid the illegitimate pressures, while others simply acquiesce. Upon further investigation, we find that the differences in entrepreneurs' network strength and network proximity, combined with their individual perception of threat and resource mobility, help to predict the different strategic responses.     

The conflicting impacts of export fluctuations and diversification programmes

Abstract

While analyses of export instability and diversification policies typically focus on aggregate earnings, a conflict can arise between income instability at the aggregate and household levels. Diversification can reduce a country's aggregate income instability and simultaneously increase the instability experienced by many households, and perhaps by every household in the country. We demonstrate how alternative export portfolios can produce this conflict in instability. The conflict means that the conclusions from previous empirical studies need to be qualified and policy recommendations need to be carefully formulated.     

The German inflation and foreign business cycles, 1920–1922

The real fluctuations of the German macroeconomy in the early 1920s differed markedly from those of the other major industrial economies. As the others began a steep depression in 1920, German prices stabilized and the economy grew, led by increased investment in response to the stabilization of the political climate. German income growth increased its trade deficits for about a year and cushioned the onset of the depression abroad. In summer 1921, however, as Germany began paying reparations, inflation restarted and investor confidence ebbed. The German boom strengthened then because exports increased and filled the gap left by lagging investment. As Germany struggled to pay reparations, her export boom worsened the depression of demand in the Allied economies, struggling then to recover from the depression.