Corporate social accounting in the United States of America: State of the art and future prospects

In the past 5 years, accounting researchers, management consultants and corporate executives have been attempting to develop operational frameworks for the implementation and institutionalization of corporate social accounting. This has produced a tremendous diversity in the measurement models and reporting frameworks that have been developed. This paper synthesizes the major approaches in the U.S.A. to measurement and reporting of the impact of an organization on society. It also suggests future research needs in this area.     

Firm creation,entry costs,and house-price volatility∗

Amid growing work on the link between firm creation and cyclical housing-market dynamics, we document a significant, positive, and robust cross-country relationship between the level of new firm creation and the cyclical volatility of house prices. Using a business-cycle model with endogenous firm entry, housing, and housing-finance constraints and shocks, we show that, via general equilibrium effects, greater average firm entry can be a powerful amplification mechanism of housing-finance shocks. These shocks and constraints play a key role in quantitatively rationalizing the link between firm creation and house-price volatility across countries.