Public goods, merit goods, and the relation between private and government consumption

In this paper, we investigate the relation between public and private consumption, by constructing a general government spending data set, by function, for 12 European countries. In particular, we split government consumption into two categories. The first category—“public goods”—includes defence, public order, and justice. The second category—“merit goods”—includes health, education, and other services that could have been provided privately. Equations from a relatively general permanent income model are estimated by GMM. The estimates are fairly robust in showing that public goods substitute while merit goods complement private consumption. However, the relation between merit goods and private goods turns out to be stronger than that between public goods and private goods. Thus, in the aggregate government and private consumption are complements.     

Celebrating 20 Years of Publication of Accounting Education: an international journal: 1992–2011

This paper describes the background to the establishment of Accounting Education: an international journal, as well as an outline of its distinctive characteristics, including the international focus of the journal both in relation to the composition of its Editorial Boards and its authorship since its launch in 1992. A thematic analysis of papers for the second decade of the journal is incorporated, together with insights as to the future directions in accounting education. As the 20-year milestone of the journal was reached Professor Richard M. S. Wilson completed his term of office as founding Editor, and a new Editor took over. The paper recognises Professor Wilson's efforts in establishing an international journal devoted to publishing accounting education research relevant to practitioners, academics, trainers, students, researchers and professional bodies.     

Funzioni scalari affini generalizzate

In questo lavoro si estende il concetto di funzione affine a tutte le classi di funzioni che verificano sia una sorta di concavità generalizzata sia la corrispondente proprietà di convessità generalizzata. Di tali classi vengono studiate le relazioni di inclusione e le proprietà relative alle trasformazioni di funzione.

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Summary In this paper some different classes of functions, generalizing the concept of affine function, are introduced and studied. Properties and relationships among the classes are given and some properties about functions transformation are provided.

     

The impact of vendor incentives on Quick Response

Quick Response (QR) is an important business strategy that was initiated in the mid 1980s to deal with competition, slow growth, and reduced margins in the apparel industry. The purpose of this paper was to explore QR strategies focusing on the development of vendor partnerships. A vendor partnership model of QR implementation and channel relationships was developed using an exploratory sample of US retail firms. The model was tested using correlation analysis. Major findings indicated that these firms gave vendors incentives to adopt QR and that firms having more advanced QR programmes perceived fewer problems than those with less advanced programmes. A partial relationship was found between QR and improved financial performance. Finally, the length of time firms had been practicing QR did not guarantee a more advanced QR programme.     

Corporate Sustainability and Ethical Codes Effectiveness

In the last years, the issues regarding both sustainable development and business global responsibility have qualified the corporate governance effectiveness. Many international institutions have intervened and the companies, at least formally, have increased their attention to the interaction between stakeholder relationship management and economic, social, and environmental responsibility. The numerous and frequent scandals underline the discrepancy between the firms＇ formal statements and the substantial behaviors. Most of the companies, in the industrialized country, publish well-structured code of ethics and conduct, explicating the strategic values assigned to the global responsibility. The research considers the capability of the code of conduct to influence effectively the behaviors, in relation with the needs of transparency, sharing, coherent individual behavior, and control. In relation to the importance conferred to the sustainable development by the European Union （EU）, the analysis examines listed companies with the greatest market capitalization operating in the Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, in order to verify the firms＇ behavioral uniformity and the effectiveness of sustainability policies. The analysis shows that the codes of ethics seem to remain only formal declarations. Conscious and rational governance not only transfers values and principles of sustainability to the firm＇s behaviors and its result system, but also goes beyond a mere diffusion and formalization of codes of ethics and conducts. To achieve that, it is necessary to develop productive behaviors focused on the risk control and on managing behaviors of all the organization＇s members, in particular in reference to the stakeholder relationship management. The codes of ethics, in fact, seem to assume a poor relevance for the corporate sustainability promotion if a correct formal structure does not occur integrated with strategies and processes which assure a constant workability. It requests especially： the ethic cu     

Validation study of a model for the assessment of potential in Italian Young Professionals working in medium-sized to large companies in different business sectors

The paper presents the results of a survey carried out on the potential profiles of 1,068 Italian Young Professionals coming out from Assessment Center and Development Center activities. A review carried out on a database of potential profiles made available by GSO, which has acknowledged the potential assessments conducted by 35 medium to large sized companies of 8 different business sectors (Banking, Publishing, Pharmaceutical, Large-scale distribution, Transports, Fashion and Luxury, Telecommunications, Energy) over ten years, showed that the potential assessment of Young Professionals was carried out by means of observation grids including from 15 to 20 different skills, reaching a total number of 48 skills evaluated in all the companies examined. The aim of this research is to achieve an assessment model that includes the smallest possible number of highly predictive potential skills, avoiding dispersions and redundancies in the assessment and maximizing the opportunities for the companies to make correct managerial choices when using potential data. The research has applied a series of statistical models (correlation, factor analysis and regression) in order to reduce the number of abilities and identify those that predict the overall performance. The results show that the number of “necessary” skills is below 10. Two assessment models have been obtained, one defined as Narrow (eight necessary skills) and another defined as Broad (14 skills, the necessary ones plus others considered as “secondary” but relevant).