Late-blooming societies can be stimulated by information technology

About 50 societies in the world have been unable to make significant progress toward development over the last several decades, despite various kinds of assistance. Information technology is a powerful new tool that has not yet been applied. It can strongly reinforce and redirect more familiar programs, and expedite others, such as education, micro-enterprise formation, community-oriented non-government organizations, family size limitation, social communications, financial management and stabilization of politics.Introducing much more information makes possible efficient consumption. A good, sustainable quality of life, with minimal consumption of natural resources, seems to be a superior goal for development. Here it is proposed that the target conditions should be ‘happiness’, ranging from serenity (achieving order, internal calm to delight) to spontaneous, infectious forms (well-being, fun and joy). Sociologists have developed quite robust measures over the last several decades. Happiness comes cheaply, because it need not involve massive infrastructure, fuel or other expensive inputs. Accelerated progress will require some new institutions using information appropriately.The outlook for funding from foundations created by the information technology billionaire entrepreneurs is promising after current risks of loss have diminished. The same technology would enable affluent people to adopt lives of voluntary simplicity.Consumption at a quarter of Euro–American levels requires only a little planning, and a tenth of those levels seems possible with careful organization and discipline. Then people would be able to move easily to late-blooming societies which accelerated progress through their choice of the happiness path to development. Simultaneously, some talented, energetic individuals who started poor could use the Internet to gain entry into the circle of world servers within a lifetime.     

Auditor Lobbying for Accounting Standards: The Case of Banks and Savings and Loan Associations

This study examines auditor lobbying on seven proposed US accounting standards which affect banks and savings and loan associations. Evidence is provided in support of the Watts and Zimmerman (1982, 1986) theory on auditor lobbying. Watts and Zimmerman (WZ) hypothesise that auditor lobbying is a function of the client-manager position and a set of wealth effect variables. These variables may provide an incentive for auditors to disagree with their clients on proposed accounting issues. The WZ model is modified by including an audit risk variable. Results show that the model is statistically significant and that the identified wealth and audit risk effects are significant explanatory variables of auditor lobbying behaviour.     

Bayesian games with unawareness and unawareness perfection

Applying unawareness belief structures introduced in Heifetz et al. (Games Econ Behav 77:100–121, 2013a), we develop Bayesian games with unawareness, define equilibrium, and prove existence. We show how equilibria are extended naturally from lower to higher awareness levels and restricted from higher to lower awareness levels. We apply Bayesian games with unawareness to investigate the robustness of equilibria to uncertainty about opponents’ awareness of actions. We show that a Nash equilibrium of a strategic game is robust to unawareness of actions if and only if it is not weakly dominated. Finally, we discuss the relationship between standard Bayesian games and Bayesian games with unawareness.     

How resilient is the German banking system to macroeconomic shocks?

Macroeconomic stress testing studies often rely on rather short sample periods due to the limited availability of banking data. They may fail to appropriately account for the cyclicality in the interaction between the banking system and macroeconomic developments. In this paper, we use a newly constructed data set on German banks’ income and loss statements over the past 39 years to model the interaction between the banking sector and the macroeconomy. Our VAR analysis indicates that the level of stress in the banking sector is strongly affected by monetary policy shocks. The results rationalize the active behavior of central banks observed during periods of financial market crises.     

Achieving globalization of AACSB accounting programs with faculty-led study abroad education

This paper is motivated by recommendations from the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Pathways Commission, and NAFSA: Association of International Educators to increase global exposure in the accounting curriculum. Some schools have responded to these demands by offering short-duration, faculty-led, study abroad programs. We explain how these programs play a vital role in fulfilling the educational advisory boards’ calls to internationalize the accounting curriculum and investigate the extent to which schools are incorporating these programs. This paper provides a review of the details from our hand-collected data on the short programs that are offered by AACSB-accredited institutions. We integrate the information from our collection of data on existing programs, prior literature, pronouncements from educational advisory boards, and select faculty interviews to offer an analysis of the course design and travel considerations for schools contemplating such an opportunity for students in their programs.