Reform economics and western economic theory: Unexploited opportunities

The theory of economic reforms in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not follow the development of western economic theory. Although the fundamental economic issues are different in the West and in the East (employment and inflation versus shortages and lack of technological progress) the reform economics is concerned with the optimal mix of centralisation and decentralisation, of market and hierarchy, of autonomy and control, and-more recently-of public and private. All these issues have been extensively treated in western economic literature.This paper overviews those fields in contemporary economics which could offer the East European reformers an enlightening perspective and useful tools in their search for a new institutional solution. Four such fields are presented: comparative economic systems, theory of incentives, literature stressing relative costs and benefits of different institutional solutions and comparing market and nonmarket failures, and the theory of property rights.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference Plan and/or Market. A Comparative Study of Reform Economics in Soviet-Type Societies, organized by the Institut für die Wissenschaften von Menschen in Vienna in December 1988. Useful comments by Pierre-André Chiappori, Ellen Comisso, Roger Guesnerie, Pavel Pelikan, Richard Portes, Kazimierz Poznanski and Gérard Roland are gratefully acknowledged.     

Representing identities through tourism: encounters of ethnic minorities in Dali,Yunnan Province,People's Republic of China

In the current era of globalisation ȧand regional economic integration, localised concerns with cultural identity, historical memory and collective belonging are assuming a new significance. Rather than signalling the end of localised identities, however, the current period has infused processes of identity formation with elements of political economy. One central component of political economy through which these processes are being expressed is tourism. In this context, as the social sciences have begun to take tourism seriously when addressing broader issues of culture and society, this paper elaborates on new arenas through which processes of identity formation are being articulated. Drawing on a current research project focused on cultural tourism in Dali, Yunnan Province, China, the discussion emphasises the extent to which cultural identities are appropriated, constructed and traded through and around material objects of touristic exchange. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How Much Do Corporate Defendants Really Lose? A New Verdict on the Reputation Loss Induced by Corporate Litigation

Using a novel sample of 83,260 lawsuits filed in US Federal District courts, we extend the results of prior studies investigating market value and reputational losses due to corporate misconduct. We examine alternative explanations for the loss in market value, such as media coverage, the expectation of subsequent litigation, and the defendant's willingness to settle, in addition to previously documented factors. Our results suggest that with the exception of securities litigation, this loss in market value can be attributed to these alternative explanations rather than to reputational consequences. This finding is confirmed by several indirect measures of reputation loss.     

Impact of lifestyle oriented-motivation and corporate social responsibility on multiadventure sports firms´ performance

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - The number of sports firms has grown in recent years, along with the emergence in this sector of so-called lifestyle entrepreneurs. However,...     

Consumer strategic decision making and choice process: prefabricated house purchase

This study examines the consumer choice process in case of strategic purchases, such as house buying. In view of the existing literature exploring consumer decision making and choice for strategically important products, the purpose of this research is twofold: (a) to develop a conceptual model of strategic decision making; and (b) to empirically explore this model with regard to prefabricated house purchases. The results of our qualitative research suggest that in addition to the idiosyncratic characteristics of the customer, his or her personal situation, environmental factors, the role of feelings, experience, subconscious factors, needs, and goals should to be taken into account to better understand strategic consumer decision making and their choice process when buying a house.     

Special Issue on Tax Research

Abstract

This paper is motivated by the links that continue to be forged between security pricing and accounting, building on recent findings that firms tend to be asymmetrically conservative in the timeliness of earnings recognition. The evidence is that firms in the European Union tend to recognise unrealised losses more quickly in their earnings than unrealised gains (Giner and Rees, 2001 Giner, B. and Rees, W. 2001. On the asymmetric recognition of good and bad news in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 28(9/10): 1285–1331.  [Google Scholar]; Raonic et al., forthcoming), and there is evidence of even greater accounting conservatism in the USA (Basu, 1997 Basu, S. 1997. The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 24: 3–37. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Ball et al., 2000 Ball, R., Kothari, S. P. and Robin, A. 2000. The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 1–51. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Givoly and Hayn, 2000 Givoly, D. and Hayn, C. 2000. The changing time-series properties of earnings, cash flows and accruals: has financial reporting become more conservative?. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 287–320. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This paper investigates whether the Czech market exhibits conformity with the behaviour that has been documented elsewhere by examining the earnings/returns relationship, focusing to begin with on the impact of losses on earnings response coefficients and then considering the asymmetric timeliness of income recognition in the Czech market. The findings indicate that the Czech market is similar to more developed markets, at least in one respect: there is statistically significant evidence of different market effects of profits and losses, in that profits are more persistent than losses. However, contrary to the findings in more developed markets, there is no statistically significant evidence of earnings conservatism in the Czech market. These results are most probably due to the continuing influence of restrictive tax regulations that mitigate any tendency towards conservatism, as well as the transitional nature of the economy. A further reason is likely to be that the regulatory environment in the Czech Republic is close to the kind of stakeholder corporatism that is described by Ball et al. (2000) Ball, R., Kothari, S. P. and Robin, A. 2000. The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 29: 1–51. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], who show that conservatism tends to be less pronounced in such regimes where there are fewer managerial incentives to bias current earnings. In conclusion, if changes in market prices signal good news and bad news about future risky outcomes, there is no evidence of asymmetry in the Czech market in accounting for such risks.     

Competition and ownership structure: Substitutes or complements? Evidence from the Warsaw Stock Exchange

In this paper we analyse the impact of product market competition and ownership structure on firm performance. Our results show that product market competition has a positive and significant impact on performance. Concerning the effect of ownership concentration, we find a U–shaped relationship with performance. Firms with relatively dispersed and relatively concentrated ownership have higher productivity growth than firms with an intermediate level of ownership concentration. This correlation between concentration of ownership and productivity growth is not explained by the type of the controlling shareholder. Finally, product market competition and good governance tend to reinforce each other rather than to be substitutes. Competition has no significant effect on performance for the firms with ‘poor’ governance; on the contrary, it has a significant positive effect in the case of firms with ‘good’ corporate governance. JEL classification: D24, G32, L1, P2.     

The Role and Current Status of IFRS in the Completion of National Accounting Rules – Evidence from the Czech Republic

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to characterize the extent to which International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is used as a reference point for national accounting rules in the Czech Republic (CR) and what elements are incorporated in Czech Accounting Regulation, paying particular attention to the latest amendment to the Accounting Act (AA) based on the EU accounting Directive (2013/34/EU). Methods used include analysis of Ministry of Finance documents, interviews with the team members who participated in the new wording of the AA to adapt it to the EU Directive and comparison of current to existing IFRS reporting rules. The results confirm that IFRS implementation in the CR is determined by economic and institutional factors, a major part of which is played by foreign ownership of dominant Czech companies and their subordinate position as subsidiaries of foreign entities and the weak capital market. Implementation of elements of IFRS into Czech accounting standards is still only partial. This process takes place as an integral part of the process of reorientation of the entire economic system toward market principles, which includes the accounting system. Each change of the AA involves some elements of IFRS; however, between the two systems, there are still significant differences, the roots of which lie in a different (continental) model of accounting.