The ERA: A Brave New World of Accountability for Australian University Accounting Schools

This study examines the potential impact of Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) on Australian university accounting schools through a series of in-depth interviews with Heads of Schools. Using an institutional theory framework we find that the pending introduction of the ERA has brought about changes in school structures, processes and systems. A creeping isomorphism is apparent as evidenced by a sector-wide movement towards targeting publications in highly ranked North American journals. While participants were generally positive about the overall aims of the ERA many felt that it would marginalise non-mainstream research. Furthermore, they were of the opinion that the ERA would lead to a reduction in the standing of accounting schools within Australian universities relative to other disciplines.     

The gender pay platform gap during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of platform gender segregation in Australia

Progress towards pay equity between men and women in the Australian economy stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting once again the gendered impact of the pandemic. However, little is known about the impact of the pandemic on the gender pay gap in the platform economy. Drawing on data from an Australian survey of platform workers (n = 947) during the early months of the pandemic (2020), this research investigates how the pandemic impacted the gender pay gap across different platform types—care, delivery and driving, microwork, and marketplace—and the platform economy overall. The findings show that the gendered segregated nature of platform work compounded by the uneven impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on particular types of platform work increased the pay gap between men and women. This research also sought to examine the mechanisms behind the gender pay gap, finding that human capital differences and platform gender segregation largely explain the gender pay gap on platforms in Australia. There was an association between parenthood and earnings, but this is moderated by human capital and platform type, suggesting that differences in earnings amongst parents are explained by these factors. The research finds that the gender gap across the platform economy increased by five percentage points, indicating that the gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic also affected the platform economy.     

The roles of financial asset market failure denial and the economic crisis: Reflections on accounting and financial theories and practices

Throughout the world every economic and socio-economic indicator has deteriorated. The so-called ‘real economy’ has been deeply contaminated by the most significant global financial crisis for seven decades. The ultimate extent and duration of this rampant degeneration and its longer-term political effects are unpredictable but what caused the crisis? This paper examines a range of suppositions made in theories which deny the possibility of financial asset market failure and identifies ways in which they contributed to the circumstances and actions which created the current crisis.     

We Used to Get and Give a Lot of Help: Networking,Cooperation and Knowledge Flow in the Hunter Valley Wine Cluster

The Hunter Valley, New South Wales, is both Australia's oldest continually producing wine region and a highly functioning wine business cluster. New generation cluster actors perceive that the region's concentration of historic family‐based firms has contributed to its strength. We have used rarely consulted and newly accessioned evidence from the 1820s to the 1920s to qualitatively test the extent to which early networking created pathways for knowledge flow in the region. Our cross‐disciplinary research into the historic depth of embedded cooperation reveals a little known feature of early Australian business history and complements the more commonplace breadth approach in cluster studies.     

The New Microeconomics: A Psychological,Institutional, and Evolutionary Paradigm with Neoclassical Economics as a Special Case

Microeconomics requires a new grounding or formulation that can account for a broader range of socioeconomic behavior than neoclassical economics does. The core of the neoclassical economics research program—the theory of rational choice—has offered insights into the determination of socioeconomic behavior. But other elements need to be integrated into a coherent microeconomic perspective. We introduce such a perspective in which neoclassical economics becomes a special case. This advances our understanding of the determinants of behavior in a coherent and integrated manner. This perspective may form the foundation of an evolutionary and institutional perspective on socioeconomic systems. This has practical value in designing strategy and policy.     

Optimal measure preserving derivatives revisited

This article clarifies the relationship between pricing kernel monotonicity and the existence of opportunities for stochastic arbitrage in a complete and frictionless market of derivative securities written on a market portfolio. The relationship depends on whether the payoff distribution of the market portfolio satisfies a technical condition called adequacy, meaning that it is atomless or is comprised of finitely many equally probable atoms. Under adequacy, pricing kernel nonmonotonicity is equivalent to the existence of a strong form of stochastic arbitrage involving distributional replication of the market portfolio at a lower price. If the adequacy condition is dropped then this equivalence no longer holds, but pricing kernel nonmonotonicity remains equivalent to the existence of a weaker form of stochastic arbitrage involving second-order stochastic dominance of the market portfolio at a lower price. A generalization of the optimal measure preserving derivative is obtained, which achieves distributional replication at the minimum cost of all second-order stochastically dominant securities under adequacy.     

The Influence of General Strikes against Government on Stock Market Behavior

Using a sample of 76 countries, this paper examines the impact of major strikes against government and its policies on stock market behavior. An occurrence of a general strike is detrimental to the value of equities, as documented by the ceteris paribus 6.11% fall in dollar-denominated stock market indices of the affected countries. This event is also accompanied by a statistically significant increase in risk, as measured by the standard deviation of returns and Value-at-Risk metrics. Taken together, these results imply that general strikes have serious ramifications for stock market investors.     

Unequal jobs or unequal pay?

This article draws on new data to consider whether women would benefit most from upgrading the skill levels of their jobs or from achieving equal pay for work of equal value. It looks in detail at skill, gender, and whether work is full-time or part-time, concluding that reassessment of the value of women's jobs would be of greater immediate financial benefit to women than upgrading the skill level of their jobs unless this upgrading gave them access to men's jobs at men's pay and benefit rates.