Technology in the textile and clothing industries: implications for developing countries

Textile and clothing production has changed from a craft-oriented skill to a mechanical means of mass-production in the developed world since the Industrial Revolution, but has remained as an artisan-based industry in the Third World. With the availability of modern techniques to developing nations, however, there is a risk that industrialization may eliminate this craft aspect. The end result of its appearance may well be a major loss, both of unique characteristics and of products prized for their originality by connoisseurs of fine textiles.     

Management's Preferences for FASB Statement No. 52: Predictive Ability Results

Research attempting to explain or predict preferences with respect to accounting rules is a relatively new branch of accounting research. Factors affecting a manager's welfare (e.g., political costs) are identified and then evaluated empirically to ascertain whether such factors are helpful in predicting a manager's decision to respond to proposed changes in the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB's) rules on foreign currency translation. FASB Statement No. 52, issued December 1981, replaced FASB Statement No. 8 and required U.S. multinational corporations to switch from the 'temporal' to the 'current rate' method of translating foreign currency financial statements into U.S. dollars. The models use current economic data as well as information about managers' responses to earlier changes in the rules for translating foreign currency statements. While the models adequately describe management's behaviour, and hence are consistent with earlier research, their predictive ability is only a modest improvement over naive prediction rules.