Competing Regulatory Agencies With Conflicting Agendas: Setting Standards For Cash Flow Reporting In Australia

Financial accounting regulatory arrangements adopted in most Western countries often involve the participation of (and interactions between) public-sector and private-sector regulatory agencies. The political process associated with the development of accounting rules not only involves the efforts of interested parties seeking to secure the content of rules favourable to their interests but also the behaviours of regulatory agencies as they compete to influence or control the regulatory 'agenda'.
Regulatory agencies develop their own agendas, in light of their own perceived priorities and the regulatory initiatives of other agencies. The placing of an accounting issue on the agenda of one agency may be warmly supported by other agencies or, alternatively, be viewed as a threat to the regulatory ambitions of those other agencies.
This case study reviews the emergence and eventual resolution of an accounting issue that was initially promoted by a government agency in April 1984 but then ultimately developed as a professional accounting standard in December 1991. The study describes the activities of public and private-sector agencies during this eight-year period as they responded to proposals for the introduction of disclosure rules concerning cash flows. Evidence was obtained from public records, documents provided by interest groups, and structured and semi-structured interviews with key participants in the events described.
The analysis is underscored by our understanding of competitive regulatory interactions and formal models for analysing agenda entrance (Cobb et al. 1976). This analysis shows how the profession's standard-setting body was unable to control the global agenda for accounting rule-making as a consequence of the intervention of another body, the Australian Stock Exchange.     

中国经济增长和结构调整

该文创立一个新的分析体系并用此来解释中国经济飞速增长的源泉,传统的索洛方法只包括投入与技术进步两方面内容.我们创新地引进结构调整作为第三个增长的源泉.实证研究结果表明,结构调整可以通过以下方式来促进经济增长,即通过将资源从低效率的部门转移到高效率的部门,尤其是将农村剩余劳动力转移到乡镇企业生产上.我们还发现资本投资在对农业生产及乡镇企业的回报率比在城市要高许多,表明在农村地区缺乏投资.另一方由于有大量的剩余劳动力,农村的劳动生产率还是很低.因此,进一步发展生产力,促进跨部门跨地区的劳动力流动,对提高整个经济效率将会有决定性作用.     

Ranking Australian Economics Departments by Research Productivity

This study ranks Australian economics departments according to their average research productivity during 1998–2002. The highest ranked departments are those at ANU, JCU, Melbourne, Tasmania and UWA. We also rank departments according to the variability of research productivity among their members, the assumption being that, other things being equal, the less variable is productivity within a department, the better. Research productivity is found to be highly skewed within all departments. However, in general, research productivity is more (less) evenly distributed within those departments that have relatively high (low) average research productivity.     

Cooperation Within the Entity of the Firm:

A bstract . When the presence of unexploited/ree riding opportunities within organizations is considered a sign of cooperation among employees, a repeated prisoner's dilemma game may be used as an explanation. In this paper, arguments against sole reliance on the repeated prisoner's dilemma game for explaining cooperation within the firm are set forth. Some overlooked reasons for explaining cooperation are offered.     

High school students' knowledge of telemarketing fraud tactics in the U.S.A.

Telemarketing fraud is a rapidly increasing problem with widespread economic implications for consumers and society. Given the extent of the problem, government agencies and consumer organizations are involved in educational efforts aimed at reducing telemarketing fraud. But does education make a difference? The effects of an educational experience on the knowledge of high school students with regard to telemarketing fraud tactics were explored in a controlled setting, in this study. Analyses of pre- and post-test results for treatment and control groups revealed an increased knowledge of telemarketing fraud tactics from a lesson on legitimate and fraudulent telemarketing practices. Even after controlling for age, gender and rural/urban residence a significant difference in average test scores continued to exist.     

Economic Background to the Coal Dispute

This Briefing Paper attempts to explain the economic forces behind the decline of the coal industry. The main findings (presented in the order in which the argument is developed) are:

• 1 Coal output has been declining throughout this century. This decline accelerated in the 1950s and 1960s when coal was faced with competition from oil.
• 2 The decline was arrested by the the oil price increases of the 1970s which have allowed coal to establish and maintain a price advantage over alternative fuels. Despite this, coal has not increased its market share over the past decade.
• 3 Because of energy conservation, in response to the price increases of the 1970s, total energy demand has fallen over the past ten years.
• 4 With coal holding a stable share of a static market, the output projections for the industry drawn up in the 1970s including those in the 1974 “Plan for Coal” are now totally outdated.
• 5 Even if total energy demand were to expand, there would not necessarily be increased demand for British coal, which is more expensive to produce at the margin than alternative sources of supply (from the US, South Africa and Australia).
• 6 Home-produced coal enjoys some natural protection from overseas competition because of high transport costs. In addition there is a tax on fuel oil and informal restrictions on imports. These partially insulate the domestic price of coal from changes in the world price.
• 7 The cost of producing coal has risen substantially in real terms since 1973-4, despite a major investment programme. Productivity has risen slightly faster than the national average, but wages and non-wage costs have risen very much faster.
• 8 The upward pressure on costs has come partly from the mineworkers' climb from twelfth to first or second place in the wages' league; and partly from the failure to close non-economic pits fast enough.
• 9 This pressure on costs meant that by 1981-2 less than half of the industry's total output was produced at profitable pits, which employed only 65,000 mineworkers.
• 10 There is a large tranche of marginally uneconomic pits which may be unprofitable one year but profitable another, and there is a strong case for keeping such pits open.
• 11 The number of pits which are profitable at the margin is very sensitive to movements in costs. I f mineworkers' wages had risen only in line with the national average for manufacturing over the period 1973-4 to 1981-2, the number of jobs in profitable pits would have been 95,000 rather than 65,000.
• 12 The subsidy per man in the most inefficient pit in 1981-2 was of the order of £14000. The subsidy per man in the marginal pit at break-even point for the industry as a whole was nearly £5000.
• 13 Under a cash limit system every pound spent on subsidising miners is a pound less available to spend elsewhere. Subsidising coal miners is a costly way of preserving jobs compared with alternatives.

     

The Asian community as a consumer group

The Asian community represents a substantial market in the UK, yet is comparatively neglected by both researchers and manufacturers. A survey was conducted to investigate the consumption patterns of Pakistani families in Newcastle upon Tyne, and to highlight differences between this ethnic group and the native population.