The legitimacy of new assurance providers: Making the cap fit

According to Bourdieu, legitimacy is a scarce symbolic resource that is subject to struggle and (re)negotiation. Focusing on the emergence and operation of the salary cap audit programs in the National Rugby League (NRL) in Australia and Canadian Football League (CFL) in Canada, this article explores the way in which auditors compete for legitimacy in new audit spaces. We highlight the way that capital from intersecting semi-autonomous fields were drawn upon to generate legitimacy for the new roles. We also draw attention to a range of practical strategies, including conscious ingratiation, sanctioning, and fairness appeals, which were mobilised to impose the auditors in their roles, populate the field with new rules and confer a new order. The contrasting case studies reveal the importance of contextual elements and the configuration of the field of power in each case. Implications for the claims of the accounting profession to new audit spaces are discussed.     

An economic reappraisal of the Melamchi water supply project - Kathmandu,Nepal

This paper examines whether the benefits of the Melamchi water supply project in Nepal are likely to exceed its costs, assuming that high-quality municipal water services can be delivered to households and firms in the urbanized part of the Kathmandu Valley. Monte Carlo simulations are used to explore the sensitivity of the net present value and economic internal rate of return calculations to a wide range of assumptions and input parameters. We find that extreme assumptions are not required to generate large differences in economic feasibility; quite plausible differences in the values of some key parameters can lead to large differences in the economic attractiveness of the project. The results reveal that the three most important influences on net present value and economic internal rate of return are: (i) the discount rate and discounting procedure; (ii) the magnitude of monthly benefits for households connected to the new water system; and (iii) the annual growth rate in monthly benefits of connected households after the project comes on line. Our contribution lies in illustrating, with an actual case study in a developing country, the degree to which cost-benefit calculations of large infrastructure projects are influenced by key economic modeling assumptions and input parameters.JEL Classification: H42, H43, H54, Q25, Q56 Correspondence to: Dale WhittingtonWe would especially like to thank Keiichi Tamaki (ADB) and Ian Hill (Acres International) for their guidance and assistance with this project. We would also like to thank the following individuals for their help during our mission to Kathmandu in May, 2003: Richard W. A. Vokes, Kathie M. Julian, Raj Kumar Malla, Madan Shankar Shrestha, Suman Prasad Sharma and Noor Kumar Tamrakar.     

The Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Real and Accrual‐based Earnings Management: Evidence from China

This study examines the relationship between Chinese firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their earnings management (EM) practices. As China rapidly emerges as one of the largest exporters as well as importers, an understanding of Chinese CSR practices is increasingly important not only to Chinese authorities and firms, but also to international stakeholders. However, Chinese CSR has been largely underestimated in previous studies, and this CSR–EM relationship has never been sufficiently examined with regard to Chinese firms. In addition, this study measures the level of EM using two different methods: accrual‐based EM (AEM) and real activity‐based EM (REM). In general, REM is regarded as more costly but less detectable, while AEM is regarded as less costly but more detectable, owing to the fact that AEM is subject to greater scrutiny from auditors and regulators. The results show that Chinese firms’ enhanced CSR generally decreases their EM practices. On the contrary, state‐controlled firms and firms operating in more institutionally developed regions are more likely to engage in REM, while increasing their CSR activities. These findings provide new evidence that managers in Chinese firms tend to opportunistically adopt CSR practices according to the firm's institutional environment.     

The Impact of Price Disclosure on Dynamic Shopping Decisions

A potentially powerful way to assist consumers in making dynamic shopping decisions is to disclose price information to them before they shop, for example by posting prices on the Internet. This paper addresses the differential impact of disclosing either only current, or both current and future prices, on consumer shopping decisions in multi-period tasks involving multiple product purchases. In the context of an Internet-based experiment, we find that consumer expenditure deviates more strongly from that of a normative model when both current and future prices are disclosed than if only current prices are disclosed. We investigate the behavioral effects underlying this finding by estimating a model that allows for variations in consumer discounting, strength of store price format preferences, as well as choice consistency between different price disclosure conditions.     

Book briefs

Agricultural mechanization and the evolution of farming systems in Sub‐Saharan Africa, World Bank publication, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and Lon‐don, 1987

Livestock development in Latin America, World Bank publication. 1986

Liberty, Market and State: Political economy in the 1980s, Wheatsheaf Books, Brighton, 1986

Law, custom and social order: The colonial experience in Malawi and Zambia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1985     

农业增长和经济发展:全球化视角的观点

本文重新考察了农业部门增长对经济全面发展的贡献这一古老命题,并试图探讨在一个日益全球化的世界中,这一命题是否依然有效。有足够的经验证据支持这一命题。实际上,除了一些城市型国家的经济发展没有强劲的农业增长外,很难再找出其他什么例外。然而,有很多国家既没有见到其农业增长,也没有见到其经济发展。即使在那些农业增长显著的国家,国内也存在巨大的地区差异。本文同时研究了促进或限制农业转型的因素。全球化进程及其引致的农业食品体系变革,是为农业主导的增长提供了新的机会？还是使得那些受排斥的国家、地区或群体被进一步的边缘化？本文还研究了导致这种被排斥的因素,包括全球化力量和国内政策与治理方面的弱点。最后,本文探讨了降低农业体系转型成本的政策措施,包括向那些落后的国家、地区或群体提供安全保障体系等。