Attribute differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS earnings: An exploratory study

In this study we explore attribute differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS earnings. Our study is motivated by the ongoing harmonization process in accounting standard setting as well as by recent convergence projects by the FASB and the IASB. We test two market-based earnings attributes, i.e., value relevance and timeliness, as well as two accounting-based earnings attributes, i.e., predictability and accrual quality. These attributes are tested for German New Market firms as they are allowed to choose between IFRS and U.S. GAAP for financial reporting purposes. Overall, we find that U.S. GAAP and IFRS only differ with regard to predictive ability. The fact that U.S. GAAP accounting information outperforms IFRS also holds after controlling for differences in firm characteristics, such as size, leverage and the audit firm. However, our results also seem to suggest that these differences are not fully valued by investors, as we do not observe significant and consistent differences for the value-relevance attribute.     

美国税权划分制度评析与借鉴

美国的联邦、州和地方三级政府各自拥有属于本级的税权,并在同级政府层面上表现为税收立法权、执法权和司法权三者之间的划分与制衡。本文通过分析美国税权划分的主要特点,对我国税权划分改革提出了若干建议:确定税权划分的法定主义原则、税收立法权划分的指导思想、赋予地方适度税权的具体设想、明确划分中央与地方税收执法权限、建立解决地区间税权争议的协调机制、通过一些制度设计完善税收司法权的行使。     

Firm exit,technological progress and trade

The dynamics of export market exit and firm closure have found limited attention in the new heterogeneous-firms trade literature. In fact, several of the predictions on firm survival and exit stemming from this new class of models are at odds with the stylized facts. Empirically, higher productivity firms survive longer, most firm closures are young firms, higher productivity exporters are more likely to continue to export compared to less productive exporters and market exits as well as firm closures are typically preceded by periods of contracting market shares. The present paper shows that the simple inclusion of exogenous economy wide technological progress into the standard Melitz (2003) model generates a tractable dynamic framework that generates endogenous exit decisions of firms in line with the stylized facts. Furthermore, we derive the effects of faster technological progress and trade liberalization on export market exit and firm closure.     

How better targeting of social spending affects social delivery in South Africa

Social spending has become a major tool of targeting resources to South Africa's poor. The poor now get considerably more than their population share of social spending, but the underlying distribution of income is so skewed that overall post-fiscal inequality has not improved much. Concentration ratios and curves show considerable shifts in social spending incidence in the period 1995 to 2006. However, the efficiency of that spending is low, resulting in limited social outcomes and consequently also limited gains to the poor from better targeting. This paper therefore calls for the South African policy discussion to shift to why the ever-increasing fiscal inputs and improved targeting of those inputs have not produced the desired social outcomes.     

The impact of foresight on environmental science and technology policy in the Netherlands

Globalisation, high tech development and environmental issues have made policy makers aware again of the possibilities of future studies for policy making. However, the lack of systematic knowledge about their impact is a major obstruction to a proper use of future studies. Especially since future studies no longer claim to predict the future, but are seen as a strategic tool for improving strategic interaction between key actors and for anticipatory policy making, insight in the dynamics of future studies is indispensable. In this article we review four future studies in the Netherlands with an eye on their methods and related impact on research in sustainable technology. Although in content the four studies were quite similar, they were complementary in linking research strategies and policy objectives.     

Entry Facilitation by Environmental Groups

We consider a model of vertical product differentiation where consumers care about the environmental damage their consumption causes. An environmental group is capable of increasing consumers’ environmental concern via a costly campaign. We show that the prospect of such a campaign can induce entry by a firm that is able to employ a cleaner technology than the one used by the incumbent. We further demonstrate that the subsequent competition can lead to an adverse effect on aggregate pollution, i.e. the decline in average industry pollution per product is offset by the increase in aggregate production.