Patrick Colquhoun

Patrick Colquhoun, ‘the father of Glasgow’, established his reputation as an able accountant, businessman and manager in the 1780s. This reputation was overshadowed by his contributions to penal reform which he made in the 1790s when he resided in London. Radzinowicz (1956) and Foucault (1977) showed that Colquhoun, in conjunction with his friend Jeremy Bentham, the famous utilitarian economist, made a significant impact on penal reform. Their contribution was encouraged by the British government in the period of turmoil which followed the French Revolution. Bentham understood the role of accounting in the management of businesses (Goldberg, 1956; Hume, 1970; Gallhofer and Haslam, 1993). He alone recognized the importance of Colquhoun's accounting knowledge and business experience and how his pragmatism enhanced his powerful cases for the adoption of new socioeconomic systems. Until now this view of Bentham has been ignored. Other historians, driven by their special interests, concentrated on one phase of Colquhoun's diverse life. None attempted to analyse the relationship between his ideas for the reform of punishment, police and poor systems and his prior experience as an accountant, businessman and manager. That relationship is the subject of this article and the objective of my research is to answer two questions. First, where did Patrick Colquhoun acquire his knowledge of business and accounting techniques? Second, how did he use his knowledge in the 1790s to build cases which influenced those in power to adopt new socioeconomic systems?     

Les déterminants du niveau d'endettement de l'entreprise: une analyse de séries chronologiques constituées à partir des données contenues dans les déclarations de revenus produites aux États-Unis*

Résumé. L'auteur examine comment le risque d'épuisement des obligations fiscales des sociétés avant la déduction des intérêts débiteurs influe sur leur niveau d'endettement. L'étude diffère des travaux précédents sous trois aspects: 1) elle fait usage de données compilées par l'Internal Revenue Service (IRS) à partir des déclarations de revenus des sociétés plutôt que de données comptables; 2) elle mesure le risque d'épuisement de l'impôt avec plus de précision; et 3) elle fait appel à une méthode reposant sur les séries chronologiques et le calcul des différences d'ordre 1, de sorte que les sociétés servent d'élément d'autocontrôle entre années successives. Ces innovations méthodologiques réduisent les distorsions attribuables à l'erreur de mesure et aux variables omises que l'on retrouvait dans les travaux précédents. Les résultats donnent à penser que, toutes choses étant égales par ailleurs, le risque élevé d'épuisement de l'impôt amène les sociétés à réduire leur utilisation du levier financier. L'étude fournit également des données confirmant pour la première fois que les impôts des particuliers influent de manière sensible sur le niveau d'endettement des sociétés. Les effets des décisions relatives au niveau d'endettement sur d'autres variables font également l'objet de tests dont les résultats confirment les prévisions énoncées dans les travaux théoriques précédents.     

An Investigation of the Specification and Stability of the Australian Aggregate Wage Equation*

Previous researchers of the Australian aggregate wage equation have chosen to use overlapping quarterly rates of change instead of the simple quarterly rates of change in heir empirical specification of this relationship. This paper argues that there is little intuitive or empirical evidence to support a continuation of this preference. The use of simple quarterly rates of change yields a well-specified and stable empirical relationship, thus offering a viable alternative to the traditional approach. The estimation results provide further evidence or some of the Australian Phillips curve controversies.     

Education Policy and Teacher Effort

The authors analyze the effect of school, student, and teacher characteristics on teacher effort, as measured by homework frequency and time put in at home. Although teacher autonomy and “professionalism” have little effect on effort, teachers' academic backgrounds matter. Teachers who are assigned higher-achieving students also put in more effort, a response to student ability as well as a consequence of staffing such classes with harder-working instructors.     

SAVING BEHAVIOR AND SOVIET REFORM

This paper argues against using the forced savings concept to explain saving behavior of Soviet consumers. It discusses reasons for consumers in a traditional Soviet economy to save less than their counterparts in market economies at similar economic development stages. These reasons include low variability of life cycle income, large state subsidies to major consumption items, ability of retirees to compensate for low money income by acquiring goods at state-controlled prices through standing in queues, and limited choice of financial instruments. When transition to a market economy occurs or is expected to occur, consumers tend to increase their savings. The way to deal with the Soviet system's inefficiencies is to liberalize currently controlled prices and to implement other market reforms, which would result in lifting official restrictions on already existing market forces. Market reforms, in turn, will help achieve financial stability. The Soviet economy's problem is not excessive saving but rather the excessive role of the state.