提高政府绩效增强政府问责和前瞻能力

2007午8月26日下午,美国审计长沃克先生受聘为南京审计学院名誉教授仪式暨演讲会在南京审计学院隆重举行。中华人民共和国审计署李金华审计长在仪式上发表了热情洋溢的讲话。院长王家新教授向沃克先生颁发了南京审计学院名誉教授证书和校徽。沃克先生作了题为《提高政府绩效,增强政府问责和前瞻能力》的演讲。 美国政府绩效审计居于世界领先地位,沃克先生在演讲中结合美国绩效审计工作的实际着重阐述如何提高政府绩效、增强政府问责能力和前瞻能力的问题。他认为最高审计机关应在激励、透明和问责三个要素作用下实现效率和可信度的最大化,并促使政府改善绩效、聚焦于长远问题的解决。他的演讲有助于我们更深层次地思考和改进中国政府绩效审计等方面的问题。这里我们刊出美国审计长沃克先生演讲的主要内容,以飨读者。[编者按]     

The Influence of Regulation on the Publication of Consolidated Statements

The impact of regulation on the publication of consolidated statements by Australian listed companies is examined by reviewing evidence of the first use of consolidated statements by holding companies listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange, excluding companies incorporated elsewhere, and relating that evidence to the chronology of the development of statutory, professional and stock-exchange regulations permitting or prescribing the use of consolidated statements. The findings are that the wider adoption of consolidation accounting has been associated with changes in statutory and other forms of regulation. These findings contradict the conclusions of earlier studies (Whittred, 1986, 1987, 1988), namely that regulation was of minimal influence, and that the adoption of consolidation accounting was explainable by 'contracting cost variables'. Major flaws identified in these earlier studies were an apparent failure to recognize that Sydney listed companies may have been subject to regulations established in other jurisdictions, and a crucial misinterpretation of the history of Australian stock exchange listing rules, which led to the misidentification of listed companies as having adopted consolidation 'voluntarily'.
The findings also underline comments made previously in critiques of other papers which have tested hypotheses incorporating agency or contracting costs. While historical analysis can assist the exercise of judgment in the classification of events, those who rely on historical evidence in the development of theories and in framing hypotheses should use that evidence with care, having regard to pertinent contextual factors.     

Are all dividends created equal? Australian evidence using dividend‐increase track records

Recent research indicates that the signal sent by a dividend change is more powerful for longer histories of unchanged dividends. We study the dividend history of Australian firms to investigate whether the signalling power of a dividend increase varies with the frequency of repetition. We find that the first three consecutive dividend increases are associated with significantly positive abnormal returns, and subsequent increases are generally not significant, even after controlling for the interaction effect with the simultaneously announced earnings information. Our results support the hypothesis that repeating a dividend increase eventually leads to a reputation for further increases and weakens the value of subsequent increases as a means of disseminating management's private information.     

The Public Clock: Temporal Ordering and Policy

This paper proposes a model for thinking about public policy that is holistic and inclusive. Using a ‘temporal lens’ it is argued that much that is taken for granted about modernity and progress is rooted in temporal structures that privilege certain social processes and interest groups. For community to be engaged in deliberative policy that is relevant to local contexts and imbued with social foresight requires current temporal practices to be challenged and renegotiated in order to allow for flexible policy processes that speak to the needs and concerns of the public sphere.     

How employee stock options and executive equity ownership affect long-term IPO operating performance

To ascertain whether the form of managerial compensation affects a firm's long-term operating performance, we track IPOs for 5 years after the expiration of the stabilization period. New public companies perform better when managers receive a balanced combination of stock option grants and equity ownership. Firms with unbalanced compensation arrangements, large option grants and little equity ownership or vice versa do not perform as well. This empirical finding is consistent with a theoretical explanation based on managerial risk aversion and the alignment of managerial and owner incentives.