Rejoinder to Commentaries on: Contextualizing the Intermediate Financial Accounting Courses in the Global Financial Crisis

This Teaching Note reports on an initiative designed to increase the number of students who undertake homework in the absence of formal rewards, such as additional marks. While the initiative was successful in increasing the number of students who attempted the homework each week, preliminary findings suggest it may have been accompanied by a fall in attendance levels. The note concludes with some lessons learned and recommendations for educators who wish to undertake a rigorous empirical study of the initiative's effectiveness and impact.     

Regaining control through reclamation: how consumption subcultures preserve meaning and group identity after commodification

We examine the process of subcultural commodification where group meanings of a Japanese youth consumer subculture (i.e. Harajuku) are created, fragmented, and then commodified by the mainstream culture. We consider the role of authenticity in subcultures and specifically what it means to reclaim meanings and group identity after commodification. Using a multi-method ethnographic approach, we explore how a subculture reacts when faced with co-optation. In light of the Harajuku group's attempt to preserve a meaningful form of their community, we illuminate the consumption processes through which their group identity is re-negotiated and sustained. This analysis promotes understanding of how a non-Western subculture reacts after mainstream commodification, and the strategies they employ to regain control of their community by reclaiming authenticity, maintaining collective belonging, and uniting with a common cause.     

The innovation consequences of mandatory patent disclosures

We investigate the effect of patent disclosures on corporate innovation. Using the American Inventor's Protection Act (AIPA) as a shock that increased patent disclosures, we find an increase in innovation for firms whose rivals reveal more information after the AIPA and a decrease in innovation for firms whose own disclosures are divulged to competitors as a result of the law. These findings suggest patent disclosures generate both spillover benefits and proprietary costs. Our findings provide justification for patent disclosure requirements by demonstrating positive externalities: rivals' disclosures facilitate a firm's innovation. However, we also highlight that mandatory patent disclosures can impose proprietary costs on firms. These results broadly contribute to our understanding of the real effects of disclosure, such that forcing firms to share proprietary information can be privately costly but beneficial to other firms.     

Explaining the marketing effort of professional service providers: An exploratory study

A mail survey was done of professionals from major architectural, law, and accounting firms to determine what factors seem to explain how much effort they devote to marketing their firms' services. The results of this exploratory study identified several significant explanatory variables, a few of which had effects in some professions and not others. Additional research in this area is recommended.     

Consumer well-being in a future of accelerating novelty

Novel goods and ideas are introduced to today’s consumers with increasing frequency. This phenomenon is perhaps most notable in the apparel industry, which in recent decades has seen the rise of “fast fashion” and an accelerating rate of novel style introductions from semi-annual to semi-weekly. In this paper I study the potential for this type of accelerating novelty to have a negative impact on consumer well-being. I analyze a simple theoretical model of consumer behavior in which consumers with a preference for novelty decide how fast to replace their fashion goods before and after an innovation which accelerates the rate at which new goods become available. In the basic model, where consumers update their goods based on their intrinsic preference for novelty, the novelty-accelerating innovation is not welfare-decreasing. However, when the model is extended in realistic ways, I find that there are at least three conditions under which the innovation may decrease welfare by increasing the extent of sub-optimal replacement: if there are external costs of updating to a newer good; if the consumers are boundedly rational and exhibit present bias; or if consumers’ replacement decisions reflect an arms race for social status. My results in these model extensions provide an economic foundation for rising popular concern about undesirable social effects of “fast fashion.” I also discuss the implications of these results for future patterns of consumption, which are likely to reflect still more accelerated novelty and possibly the expansion of fashion behavior to a broader range of consumption settings.     

The cost-effectiveness of disease-modifying therapies for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis

Background: The safety and efficacy of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) has been established; however, it is not clear which provides optimal value, given benefit-risk profiles and costs.

Aims: To compare the cost-effectiveness of current DMTs for patients with RRMS in the US.

Materials and methods: A Markov model predicting RRMS course following initiation of a DMT was created comparing outcomes (e.g. relapses, disease progression) and costs of natalizumab (NTZ), dimethyl fumarate (DMF), and peginterferon beta-1a (PEG) with fingolimod (FIN), glatiramer acetate (GA, 20?mg daily), and subcutaneous interferon beta-1a (IFN, 44?mcg), respectively, over 10 years. RRMS and secondary-progressive MS (SPMS) EDSS state transitions were predicted in 3-month cycles in which patients were at risk of death, relapse, or discontinuation. Upon DMT discontinuation, natural history progression and relapse rates were applied. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were estimated for the cost per relapse avoided, relapse-free years gained, progression avoided, and progression-free years gained. The impact of model parameters on outcomes was evaluated via one-way sensitivity analyses.

Results: Costs ranged from $561,177 (NTZ) to $616,251 (GA). NTZ, DMF, and PEG were dominant (less costly and more effective) compared to FIN, GA, and IFN, respectively, for all ICERs. Variability in drug costs and parameters that affected drug cost accrual (e.g. discontinuation rates and the decision to drop out after SPMS conversion) had a considerable impact on ICERs.

Limitations: Several simplifying assumptions were made that may represent potential limitations of this analysis (e.g. a constant treatment effect over time was assumed).

Conclusions: The results from this analysis suggest that the NTZ, DMF, and PEG are cost-effective DMT choices compared to FIN, GA, and IFN, respectively. The actual impact on a particular plan will vary based on drug pricing and other factors affecting drug cost accrual.     

Dreaming and Doing at Georgia HBCUs: Continued Relevancy in ‘Post-Racial’ America

Since their inception 150 years ago, Georgia’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have provided African American students with the best mechanism, and for some, the only opportunity to receive a collegiate education. Justifications for and against the continued relevance of HBCUs in Georgia have been raised and argued since the Brown decision in 1954 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. More than 50 years after these monumental decisions Georgia’s HBCUs remain relatively segregated, with lower endowments, budgets, graduation rates and higher cohort default rates than the state’s Predominantly White Colleges and Universities (PWCU). In defiance of political tactics to close and merge them, and despite the confluence of lower average admission requirements, less funding for institutional scholarships, limited technological resources and smaller operating budgets, Georgia’s HBCUs have persevered in providing higher educational opportunities not only for African Americans, but for students of all races. This entry focuses on HBCUs in the State of Georgia and adds to the literature on their history, purpose, effectiveness and continued relevancy.     

The Forewarning Effect of Critical Audit Matter Disclosures Involving Measurement Uncertainty*

We present experimental evidence suggesting that critical audit matter (CAM) disclosures in the auditor's report involving areas of high measurement uncertainty forewarn users of misstatement risk. Specifically, in our first study with MBA students, financial analysts, and attorneys, we find that CAMs (i) lower premisstatement assessments of confidence in the financial statement area disclosed as a CAM, and (ii) lower assessments of auditor responsibility for a subsequently revealed misstatement in a CAM-related area. In our second study with student participants proxying as mock jurors, we find that the responsibility-mitigating effect of CAM disclosure is driven by CAM disclosures involving measurement uncertainty, as opposed to CAM disclosures involving categorical determinations. Combined, our findings help reconcile mixed evidence from prior research, supporting the view that the forewarning effect of CAM disclosures involving measurement uncertainty could mitigate perceived auditor responsibility for CAM-related material misstatements.