The impact of SFAS No. 123(R) on financial statement conservatism

SFAS No. 123(R) requires firms to recognize the fair value of stock options as compensation expense over the vesting period of the options. Thus, SFAS No. 123(R) leads to an overall increase in financial statement conservatism. However, it is not known whether SFAS No. 123(R) increases conditional and/or unconditional conservatism. Because the different forms of conservatism have different implications for the quality of earnings, I investigate which types of conservatism are impacted by SFAS No. 123(R) to gain insight into the ramifications of the Standard. I find that SFAS No. 123(R) leads to an increase in both unconditional and conditional conservatism. I additionally find that the Standard causes an increased negative relation between contemporaneous economic gains and income. These findings hold outside of the sample period and under a non-priced based model of conservatism.     

Synthesizing content models of employee turnover

To identify a set of broad factors that reflect the constructs measured in three content models of employee turnover, we hypothesized 19 scales would reduce to five factors related to employee job‐search behavior and actual turnover decisions: one's affect toward the organization, work environment, instrumental attachment, extraorganizational ties, and sense of obligation. Using a sample of 888 staff members from a large university, the factor structure was confirmed. Multivariate regression results also indicated one's work environment, instrumental attachment, and sense of obligation were significantly and negatively related to both job search and turnover, with work environment and instrumental attachment exhibiting the strongest effects. Extraorganizational ties were only significantly and negatively related to job search. Interestingly, affect toward the organization was not significantly related to either job search or turnover. Path analyses indicated the effects of four of the factors on turnover were fully mediated by job search, with instrumental attachment the sole factor that was only partially mediated. Our model provides a foundation for future researchers to test the uniqueness of new predictors of turnover, as well as guidance to practitioners regarding where resources might be best utilized in curbing turnover.     

Motherhood and women's earnings in Anglo-American,Continental European,and Nordic Countries

Abstract

The earnings of mothers make up an important, but difficult to quantify, component of parental expenditures on children. This paper compares the long-term earnings of women with children, women without children, and men. The study conducts separate analyses for less educated, moderately educated, and highly educated people in eight Anglo-American, Continental European, and Nordic countries. The study finds that, for the most part, these countries cluster into three groups, with mothers in the Continental European group experiencing the largest earnings differentials, mothers in the Nordic group experiencing the smallest, and mothers in the Anglo-American countries occupying the middle position.     

An economic analysis of farm forestry as a means of controlling dryland salinity

Large areas of agricultural land under conventional crops and pastures are at risk of dryland salinisation in Australia. The salinisation problem can be controlled by strategic and large-scale planting of trees; however, farm forestry enterprises evaluated with conventional discounting techniques do not generally rank as an attractive alternative to annual crops on productive land. In this article, an optimal control model that explicitly accounts for decline or improvement in land quality over a period of 40 years is presented. The optimal area planted to trees and the optimal groundwater-table trajectory through time are determined under a variety of scenarios. Implications of the results for policy design are discussed.     

Bunk bed injuries in Australia: the case for a mandatory safety standard

Bunk beds have long been recognised as a potential source of injury to children. This study was undertaken to establish an evidence base for a proposed injury reduction program and to determine whether or not there is a case for a mandatory safety standard. Recent literature on bunk bed safety was reviewed to provide an overview of the injury issues involved. Major sources of relevant Australian and international data were identified and the available data summarised. An in-depth analysis of Victorian data was undertaken to identify the nature and severity of injuries sustained and any patterns or trends, including age profiles. It is estimated that, in Australia, in the under fifteen age-group, there are at least 2,100 bunk bed-related injuries treated annually by hospital emergency departments. This represents a rate of about 50 injuries per 100,000 age-specific population. The majority of these injuries (86%) occur in children under the age of 10 years with injuries peaking in the 5-9 year age-group. The main cause of non-fatal injury is falls from the top bunk resulting in a fracture (33%), mainly to the upper extremity (75%). There have been at least two deaths from asphyxia in Australia in the past 10 years, due to entrapment in the bunk structure. It is clear from the current evidence that bunk bed injuries are a significant problem in Australia and represent a life-threatening hazard to young children in particular. The existing voluntary Australian/New Zealand Standard adequately addresses the safety issues raised by the examination of the literature and the analysis of the injury data. It is also clear that, in Australia, voluntary standards and the market place have been ineffective in achieving compliance. It is therefore recommended that the Australian Standard be made mandatory in an effort to significantly improve the safety of bunk beds in Australia.     

Perceptions of restaurant employees in Asia Pacific on sexual harassment in the hospitality industry

A major issue facing all of the hospitality industry is that of sexual harassment and the explosion of the number of sexual harassment lawsuits being filed. According to the National Restaurant Industry (U.S.) in 1998, in certain states there are more sexual harassment lawsuits than slip and fall cases filed within the restaurant industry. With the cost of litigation and the dollar amount of settlements both increasing substantially, it is with a pro‐active view to look at the perspective of sexual harassment by restaurant employees. The purpose of this study was to measure the perceptions and attitudes of service personnel, specifically restaurant employees in Hawaii on sexual harassment.     

New development: Putting a 25-year experiment to the test

This article explains the current state of accounting by the US federal government. Key hurdles for the US reporting model and financial management are discussed. An open data system, able to aggregate cost by programme, would greatly improve the usefulness of cost information and facilitate integration of cost with performance information.     

Subordinate perceptions of family‐supportive supervision: the role of similar family‐related demographics and its effect on affective commitment

Using survey data from 227 employees, we draw from shared reality theory to study subordinate perceptions of family‐supportive supervision, its antecedents and outcomes. We focus on similarity in salient subordinate and supervisor family‐related demographics as an antecedent to perceived family‐supportive supervision. As expected, female subordinates perceived more family‐supportive supervision from female supervisors than from male supervisors. Likewise, parent subordinates perceived parent supervisors, compared with nonparent supervisors, to be more family supportive. Subordinate perception of family‐supportive supervision also positively related to affective commitment – mediating the indirect positive relationship between similarity in family‐related demographics and affective commitment.     

Public capital,sustainable debt and endogenous growth

We analyze an endogenous growth model with public capital and public debt where we posit that the primary surplus of the government is a positive function of cumulated past debt with an exponentially declining weight put on debt further back in time. We consider two scenarios: first, we study the model assuming that the government runs a balanced budget and, then, we compare the outcome to that of the model with permanent deficits. We analyze growth effects of the two scenarios and we study how fiscal policy of the government affects the dynamics of the model economy. It is demonstrated that the balanced growth rate is higher when cumulated past public debt is smaller. Further, we show that the debt policy of the government crucially determines the dynamics of the model economy and that endogenous growth cycles can arise.