Accounting for Employee Stock Options: What Can We Learn from the Market's Perceptions?

The scope of this is paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the value relevance of employee stock options (ESOs) in Europe. We show, empirically, that the market participants when pricing a firm's equity place approximately the same valuation weights on the ESO‐deferred compensation expense (the so called “ESO asset”) and the compensation option liability (the so called “ESO liability”). Our empirical findings support the theoretical work of Ohlson and Penman who suggest that the deferred compensation expense be treated as a contra‐liability. The second contribution of our work rests on the nature of the ESO expense. We show that the distinction between persistent and non‐persistent ESO expenses is of critical importance for the market participants. Accordingly, an improved accounting disclosure should assist the investors in assessing the long‐term goals of the ESO plans at the firm level.     

Using Relational and Transactional MCSs to Manage the Delivery of Outsourced Public Services: Evidence from Twelve Cases in the USA

The successful management of the purchaser–provider relationship is essential for the effective delivery of public services, and entails the use of both transactional and relational approaches. We herein analyse the degree and complementarity of transactional and relational management control systems in the management of purchaser–provider relationships for the successful delivery of public services using evidence from 12 US case studies. We demonstrate that transactional and relational management control systems are controlled differently in order to improve contracting efficiency. We also show how a combination of these management control systems offers a framework for structured public accountability and service flexibility.     

Returns to buying earnings and book value: accounting for growth and risk

Historical cost accounting deals with uncertainty by deferring the recognition of earnings until the uncertainty has largely been resolved. Such accounting affects both earnings and book value and produces expected earnings growth deemed to be at risk. This paper shows that the earnings-to-price and book-to-price ratios that are the product of this accounting forecast both earnings growth and the risk to that growth. The paper also shows that the market pricing of earnings and book values in these ratios aligns with the risk imbedded in the accounting: the returns to buying stocks on the basis of their earnings yield and book-to-price are explained as a rational pricing of the risk of expected earnings growth not being realized. Accordingly, the paper provides a rationalization of the well-documented book-to-price effect in stock returns: book-to-price indicates the risk in buying earnings growth. However, growth identified by a high book-to-price as yielding a higher return in this paper is quite different from “growth” typically attributed to a low book-to-price as yielding a lower return. Accordingly, the notion of “growth” versus “value” requires modification.     

Anomalous waiting times in high-frequency financial data

In high-frequency financial data not only returns, but also waiting times between consecutive trades are random variables. Therefore, it is possible to apply continuous-time random walks (CTRWs) as phenomenological models of the high-frequency price dynamics. An empirical analysis performed on the 30 DJIA stocks shows that the waiting-time survival probability for high-frequency data is non-exponential. This fact imposes constraints on agent-based models of financial markets.     

The co-evolution of innovation,demand and growth

In order to explain long-run economic development, we analyse in this paper the interplay between supply-side and demand-side processes. On the supply side, three different innovation processes are observed and interact: (i) growing productive efficiency, (ii) the emergence of new sectors and (iii) the increasing quality and differentiation of existing products. On the demand side, we analyse the meaning of disposable income and varying preference systems. The analysis is undertaken with the help of a numerical model of economic growth by the emergence of new industries. Our results show that the time path of economic development which we observe could not have been generated by taking into account a supply-side-based view on innovations alone. Without making reference to the formation of an adequate demand, development processes cannot be explained. The three processes need to be combined because each one individually would not suffice to generate long-run economic development. However, only with the formation of an adequate demand long-run economic development becomes sustainable.     

Assessing the Behaviour of Non-Survey Methods for Constructing Regional Input–Output Tables through a Monte Carlo Simulation

The paper aims to analyse the behaviour of a battery of non-survey techniques of constructing regional I-O tables in estimating impact. For this aim, a Monte Carlo simulation, based on the generation of ‘true’ multiregional I-O tables, was carried out. By aggregating multi-regional I-O tables, national I-O tables were obtained. From the latter, indirect regional tables were derived through the application of various regionalisation methods and the relevant multipliers were compared with the ‘true’ multipliers using a set of statistics. Three aspects of the behaviour of the methods have been analysed: performances to reproduce ‘true’ multipliers, variability of simulation error and direction of bias. The results have demonstrated that the Flegg et al. Location Quotient (FLQ) and its augmented version (AFLQ) represent an effective improvement of conventional techniques based on the use of location quotients in both reproducing ‘true’ multipliers and generating more stable simulation errors. In addition, the results have confirmed the existence of a tendency of the methods to over/underestimate impact. In the cases of the FLQ and the AFLQ, this tendency depends on the value of the parameter δ.     

The New Macro Political Economy of Alberto Alesina

The paper examines the scientific work of Alberto Alesina as leader of a new school of macroeconomic political economy which has renovated and broadened the content of this branch of the economic science. His political economy is not dominated by the axiomatic normative economics, where benevolent planners maximize the aggregate welfare dressed in simplistic neo-Keynesian clothing. After an examination of its roots in the Italian tradition of political economy and public finance the paper makes a comparison with the public choice approach, with decision-making by the electors and politicians is done. However, Alesina new macro-economic perspective incorporates the hypothesis of rational agents while the public choice approach is inherently micro economic and is generally based on limited rationally.     

Indeterminacy and multiple steady states with sector-specific externalities

This paper studies a two-sector model with aggregate and sector-specific external effects in production and inelastic labor supply. We first characterize the existence, uniqueness and multiplicity of the steady states as well as their welfare properties. We particularly focus on the CES production functions and show that the steady state is generically either unique or there are exactly two. A simple geometrical methodology enables us to characterize the local dynamics of the steady state. We show that in order to get indeterminacy, the presence of both aggregate and sector-specific external effects is needed, along with low capital–labor elasticities of substitution and high, but bounded from above, elasticities in intertemporal consumption. We perform a sensitivity analysis and show that indeterminacy emerges for parameter values in line with those used in calibrations of standard RBC models, that is for unitary elasticities of input substitution and of intertemporal substitution in consumption.     

Evaluation and comparison of European countries: public opinion on services

We propose the setting-up of an indicator for classifying European countries with relation to consumers’ satisfaction for services of general interest. Services considered are fixed telephone service, electricity supply, railways and postal service. The reference data set is the 2002 Standard Eurobarometer database (EB58) and it refers to EU members before 2004 enlargement. The proposed indicator is based on nonlinear principal component analysis and supplies a measure for the citizen’s satisfaction. Its robustness is verified by a Monte Carlo approach to examine the stability of nonlinear PCA results and to compute Bootstrap C.I.s of average country scores. The level of satisfaction is eventually used for country comparison and for detecting possible hotspots, which might be useful when addressing decision making policies.