Auditing in the Presence of Outside Sources of Information

We examine how an auditor's ability to terminate a multi-period client relationship provides the auditor with a real option whose value depends on the nature of informational asymmetry between the incumbent and other potential auditors. In particular, we isolate conditions under which the auditor's private and public sources of information behave as complements rather than substitutes. In such circumstances, increasing the likelihood of publicly provided information induces the auditor to expend more (rather than less)resources in private information gathering activities.     

ECONOMIC EFFECTIVENESS OF BRAND ADVERTISING PROGRAMMES FOR U.S. ORANGE JUICE IN THE EUROPEAN MARKET: AN ERROR COMPONENT ANALYSIS

An econometric model is used to measure the impact of the Three-Party Programme on European demand for U.S. orange juice. The results show that the programme has helped expand the demand for orange juice in European countries and, from the viewpoint of the U.S. citrus industry, is an economically preferred way of generating additional exports compared with using price reductions to achieve additional sales.     

iTV: A major opportunity for financial services,or not?

Interactive television has arrived, thanks to substantial technology investments that have been made by Sky and others. It is growing in importance as innovative interactive applications are developed for broadcast programmes (eg the BBCi service and Big Brother), and for advertising — and will develop further when broadband deployment gets to critical mass. Readers should not expect a television-variant of the world wide web, however. This was tried during 2000–2002 in the form of web look-alike, interactive ‘walled garden’ sites, and failed to attract critical mass footfall. The model has evolved and now revolves around interactive content synchronised with broadcast, which offers financial services companies an interesting new way to increase awareness and to differentiate the service presentation. Furthermore, over the next ten years, broadband is expected to usher in a new era of personalised television — in which specialised broadcasts (such as personal pensions advice programmes) can be made available on demand. The observations in this paper are mainly drawn from the UK, where digital television penetration is high; the lessons can be applied more broadly, however, and are relevant to any organisation thinking of promoting its service through entertainment channels.     

Global economy gathering strength

Encouraged by a highly expansionary economic policy, the global economy is enjoying a rapid upturn. Utilisation of capacity is high in many sectors, particularly in the growth centres of the USA and East Asia, where China leads the field. With inflationary risks on the increase, most countries are now shifting the focus of economic policy. Fiscal policy in particular can be expected to provide little in the way of further stimulus. In addition, there has been a turnaround in interest rates in many countries. Yet how quickly can the monetary reins be tightened without jeopardising growth or endangering price stability?     

New ways of achieving debt sustainability beyond the enhanced HIPC Initiative

In 1996 the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was launched by the Bretton Woods institutions to reduce the external debt burden of low-income countries (LICs) to sustainable levels in a reasonably short period of time because debt constitutes an obstacle to sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. In some HIPCs, however, debt sustainability has been in danger despite debt relief under the HIPC Initiative. Debt relief is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for development. It can do no more than play a catalytic role. The question, then, is how to achieve debt sustainability beyond the HIPC Initiative.     

The impact of time duration between trades on the price of treasury note futures contracts

Recent research in finance has indicated that the institutional structure in which financial asset prices are determined can have a nontrivial impact on pricing. This report examines transaction level data for Treasury Note futures contracts traded at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) to identify institutional, or market microstructure, impacts on the pricing of these contracts. Relatively few articles have conducted empirical research on the microstructure of U.S. futures trading due to the limited availability of comprehensive transaction level data from the futures exchanges. This report uses the CBOT's Computerized Trade Reconstruction database, a comprehensive transaction level dataset, to identify the price impact of the time duration between trades in a manner analogous to that of A. Dufour and R. F. Engle (2000). Unique differences from prior research include the application to futures contracts with their relative higher frequency of trading, as well as the investigation of the price impact of the number of active traders present on the trading floor and the trading volume. Subsequent price and sign of trade significantly relate to the time duration between trades, the number of floor brokers, and the trading volume. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl. Fut Mark 24:965–980, 2004     

The Influence of Task Load and Automation Trust on Deception Detection

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects that user task load level has on the relationship between an individual's trust in and subsequent use of a system's automation. Military decision-makers trust and use information system automation to make many tactical judgments and decisions. In situations of information uncertainty (information warfare environments), decision-makers must remain aware of information reliability issues and temperate their use of system automation if necessary. An individual's task load may have an effect on his use of a system's automation in environments of information uncertainty.It was hypothesized that user task load will have a moderating effect on the positive relationship between system automation trust and use of system automation. Specifically, in situations of information uncertainty (low trust), high task load will have a negative effect on the relationship. To test this hypothesis, an experiment in a simulated command and control micro-world was conducted in which system automation trust and individual task load were manipulated. The findings from the experiment support the positive relationship between automation trust and automation use found in previous research and suggest that task load does have a negative effect on the positive relationship between automation trust and automation use. Experiment participant who incurred a higher task load exhibited an over-reliance on their automated information systems to assist them in their decision-making activities. Such an over-reliance can lead to vulnerabilities of deception and suggests the need for automated deception detection capabilities.