Briefing Paper

Between the end of 1979 and the end of 1981 unemployment rose by 1.4 million. After that exceptional period unemployment continued to rise rather less rapidly to its current level of 3.2 million, Of this 3.2 million, about 1.3 million have been unemployed for more than a year. In this Briefing Paper we describe and attempt to explain the processes by which long-term unemployment rose to its current level.
We also discuss two related questions; the first concerns the relationship between unemployment and vacancies and the second concerns the relationship between long-term unemployment and inflation. The final sections consider the policy implications of these findings.     

Towards a Unifying Model of Systems of Law, Corporate Financing, Accounting and Corporate Governance

Several authors have observed a relationship between a country's type of legal system and its style of financial reporting. Generally, the causality is presumed to be from legal system to accounting system. However, one model of accounting differences suggests that the type of accounting is an influence on the regulatory system rather than vice versa. This helps to explain why the Netherlands has Roman law but approximately Anglo-Saxon accounting. It also allows for the extensive use by European companies of US or international rules. This paper expands on these themes, and extends the model to include corporate governance.     

Canadian academic accountants' productivity: A survey of 10 refereed publications, 1976–1989*

Abstract. In this paper we examine the productivity of Canadian academic accountants through analyses of articles published in 10 refereed journals between 1976 and 1989, inclusive. We report the numbers of articles by Canadian institutional affiliation cross-tabulated by subject area, whether theoretical or empirical, and by the journal in which articles appeared. Summary statistics are computed to identify the gross and per capita productivity of the institutions represented and to identify the 10 most productive researchers in this period as well as in the subperiods 1976–82 and 1983–89.     

Bank Earnings Management and Tail Risk during the Financial Crisis

We show that a pattern of earnings management in bank financial statements has little bearing on downside risk during quiet periods, but seems to have a big impact during a financial crisis. Banks demonstrating more aggressive earnings management prior to 2007 exhibit substantially higher stock market risk once the financial crisis begins as measured by the incidence of large weekly stock price “crashes” as well as by the pattern of full‐year returns. Stock price crashes also predict future deterioration in operating performance. Bank regulators may therefore interpret them as early warning signs of impending problems.