STANDARD SETTING FOR OIL AND GAS ACCOUNTING: AN ANALYSIS USING ALLISON'S APPROACH

The three models advanced by G. T. Allison in Essence of Decision are applied to FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 19 to explain the adoption of the “successful-efforts” method. In the first model, the decision is explained as the action that reflects a consistent, value maximizing choice within specific constraints. In the second, it is interpreted as the “output” of the FASB regulated by standard procedures, namely in recognizing an asset. In the third, it is viewed as a political resultant in a struggle involving interest groups. The analysis revealed the usefulness and some weaknesses of the Allison Approach to an understanding of the standard setting decision by the FASB. The approach is applicable world-wide to other standard setting scenarios.     

A comparison of national and international aggregate supply and demand var models: The United States,Japan and the European economic community

Zusammenfassung Ein Vergleich von nationalen und internationalen VAR-Modellen mit Angebots- und Nachfrageaggregaten: USA, Japan und Europ?ische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft. - Es wird gezeigt, da\ für nationale Volkswirtschaften und auch für supranationale Gebilde vektorautoregressive Modelle konstruiert werden k?nnen, die Ergebnisse liefern, welche mit einem theoretischen Rahmen für Aggregate des Angebots und der Nachfrage in Einklang stehen. Energiepreise sind in allen Modellen einigerma\en wichtig, aber Geldangebot und Zinsen sind in dem EWG-Modell ziemlich unbedeutend. Natürlich kann dieses Ergebnis auf die Unterschiede zwischen der EWG, den USA und Japan zurückzuführen sein oder auf die Aggregation innerhalb des EWG-Modells. Trotzdem stimmt dieses Ergebnis mit den theoretischen Erwartungen überein, wonach alle Volkswirtschaften gemeinsamen weltweiten Angebotsschocks gegenüberstehen, aber - bei manipulierten floatenden Wechselkursen - eine gewisse monet?re Unabh?ngigkeit besitzen.

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Resumen Comparación de modelos autoregresivos de oferta y demanda agregada nacionales e internacionales: EE.UU., Japón y la Comunidad Económica Europea. - Se demuestra que los modelos VAR pueden ser construidos para economias tanto nacionales como supranacionales con resultados consistentes con el marco teórico de oferta y demanda agregadas. Los precios de energia tienen una cierta importancia en todos los modelos; la oferta monetaria y las tasas de interés no son importantes en el modelo para la CEE. Sin embargo, este resultado es consistente con expectativas teóricas segiín las cuales todas las economias enfrentan shocks de oferta globales comunes, pero disponen de un cierto grado de independencia monetaria en el marco de una flotatión administrada del tipo de cambio.

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Résumé Une comparaison entre des modéles VAR nationaux et internationaux d’offre et demande agrégée: les E.U., le Japon et la CEE. - Les auteurs demontrent que les modéles vecteurautorégressifs peuvent etre construits pour des économies nationales aussi bien que supranationales et que ces modeles produisent des résultats qui s’accordent avec le cadre théorique de l’offre et de la demande agrégée. Les prix d’énérgie sont importants dans tous les modéles jusqu’a un certain point, mais la masse monétaire et les taux d’ interet sont moins importants dans le modéle CEE. Naturellement, ce résultat peut etre expliqué par les différences entre la CEE et les E.U. et le Japon ou par l’agrégation dans le modéle CEE. Cependant, ce résultat est consistant avec des expectatives théoriques car toutes les économies sont confrontees avec des chocs d’offre communs globaux mais disposent de quelque independance monétaire grace au systéme de changes flottants dirigés.

     

Liberalization of agricultural input markets in Bangladesh: process,impact, and lessons

The study takes a historical perspective to trace the path of evolutionary reforms in agricultural input markets of Bangladesh. It estimates the magnitude of the impact of these reforms on rice production, the most important crop in Bangladesh agriculture. It is estimated that the production of rice could have been 20-32% lower than the level of 1992/1993, depending on the rice price that would have prevailed under alternative scenarios. The 20% credit to market reform relates to a real rice price level 19% higher than the actual 1992/1993 prices. The 32% credit to reform relates to the actual 1992/1943 price levels. The lower contribution of reform (20%) to increased production implies a loss to consumers not accounted for in the production benefit of reform, while the higher contribution (32%) of reform entails no loss to consumers. The bottom-line conclusion is that Bangladesh, without the market reforms described in the paper, would have reverted back to the situation of regular food crisis and high rice prices, as was the case historically. The analysis of the process of reform provides interesting lessons for developing countries. A gradual process based on a well-designed sequencing of various steps of market reform, particularly in the case of fertilizer, was a crucial factor for success. Careful monitoring during the period of transition is another crucial factor that has to be institutionalized in the system. Second generation problems of market reforms, particularly the emergence of an oligopolistic market structure, are possible and warrant a cautionary watch.     

Economic analysis of the introduction of agricultural revenue insurance contracts in Spain using statistical copulas

This article aims at determining how the introduction of agricultural revenue insurance contracts in Spain will affect the cost of purchasing insurance, relative to yield insurance schemes. We focus our empirical analysis on the apple and orange sectors in Spain. Statistical copulas are used to jointly model price and yield perils. Premium rates under revenue and yield insurance are simulated through Monte Carlo methods. Results indicate that revenue insurance is likely to reduce the price of agricultural insurance in Spain, which may result in higher acceptance and demand for agricultural insurance programs.     

Attitude of Muslim Consumers Toward Sex Appeal in Advertising: A Comparative Study Between Subcultures in Malaysia

This research was designed in order to explore the subculture differences in Malaysian consumers’ responses to sex appeal advertising. This study employs a 2 × 2 × 2 full factorial between subjects design. There are two levels of model gender (male/female), two levels of sex appeal (high/low), and two levels of religion of the subjects (Muslim/non-Muslim). When comparing Muslims and non-Muslims in the responses to the ads, it was generally found that Muslim subjects’ attitudes were significantly lower than non-Muslims attitudes toward the same ads. Future research should adopt a more representative sample and test different product categories.     

Performance of the Ambient Tax: Does the Nature of the Damage Matter?

The ambient tax is often considered as an efficient instrument to achieve a first best outcome of ambient pollution when the regulator cannot observe individual emissions, or when monitoring costs are prohibitive. While this view is supported to a large extent by experimental findings, there remains several hurdles that hinder the implementation of the ambient tax in the field. One of these hurdles is the nature of the damage. Experimental findings suggest that the efficiency of the ambient tax is higher under external damage, i.e. if ambient pollution affects non-polluters (Spraggon in J Public Econ 84:427–456, 2002) than under internal damage, i.e. if ambient pollution affects polluters themselves (Cochard et al. in Environ Resour Econ 30:393–422, 2005). But this result rests on very different experimental settings. Therefore, we designed a new experiment that allows to compare external and internal damage within a common setting. Our main finding is that the ambient tax is equally efficient under internal and external damage.     

Limitations of the Theories of Nonprofits and Benchmarking Services Delivery Dimensions of Poverty-Reduction Programs in Rural Bangladesh

Even though both contract failure and consumer control theories of nonprofits stress the need for monitoring the performance of the firms, these models fail to offer any guidelines on how to do so. In general, the performance of poverty-reduction projects are assessed on amounts of loan disbursement, repayment rates, area of coverage, and financial sustainability. However, performance assessment based on the efficiency of service delivery has in the past been ignored even though the importance of efficient service delivery in poverty-reduction programs is well recognized in the literature and in the theories of nonprofits. Due to this specific lacuna, benchmarking in the aspects of efficient service delivery has never been applied. Based on primary data collected from 78 villages in Bangladesh from September to December 2009, this article develops a two-dimensional multi-item service delivery index to compare the efficiency of participating organizations in the stated programs in order to set industry benchmark values for each item of the index.