Expensing of share-based payments and its impact on large UK companies

This paper investigates the impact of one of the most controversial and strongly-opposed accounting standards of recent years affecting UK companies, IFRS 2/FRS 20. The standard requires the expensing of share-based payments. The findings of the study show that the accounting standards IFRS 2/FRS 20 have had only a modest impact upon selected performance measures. Findings of this research are out of line with previous studies, which examined the position prior to the implementation of mandatory expensing and mainly cover other countries. Given the modest impact, a question arises as to why the standard was opposed so strongly. It could be concluded that the impact of the standard was overstated to fuel opposition.     

Climate Policies and Induced Technological Change: Which to Choose, the Carrot or the Stick?

Policies to reduce emissions of greenhousegases such as CO₂, will affect the rate andpattern of technological change in alternativeenergy supply and other production processes.Imperfections in markets for non-pollutingtechnologies imply that a decentralised economydoes not deliver a socially optimal outcome,and this could justify policy interventionssuch as subsidies. This paper considers thewelfare effects of technology subsidies as partof a carbon abatement policy package. We arguethat the presence of spillovers in alternativeenergy technologies does not necessarily implythat subsidy policies are welfare improving. Weillustrate this point in the context of ageneral equilibrium model with two forms ofcarbon-free energy, an existing alternative energy which is a substitute for carbon-basedfuels, and new vintage energy which providesa carbon-free replacement for existing energyservices. Subsidisation of alternative energyon the grounds of spillover effects can bewelfare-worsening if it crowds-out new vintagetechnologies.     

Carbon Abatement and International Spillovers

Carbon abatement policies in large open economies affect both the allocation of domestic resources and international market prices. A change in international prices implies an indirect secondary burden or benefit for all trading countries. Based on simulations with a large-scale computable general equilibrium model of global trade and energy use, we show that international spillovers have important welfare implications for carbon abatement policies designed to meet exogenous emission reduction targets. We present a decomposition of the total welfare effect of carbon abatement policies into a primary domestic market effect (at constant international prices) and a secondary international spillover impact as a result of changes in international prices. This decomposition reveals the extent to which domestic abatement costs are increased or decreased as a result of the impact of carbon abatement on international prices.     

Discovering wildlife tourism: a whale shark tourism case study

This paper investigates the different sources of information used by tourists to learn about a particular wildlife tourism activity, specifically, whale shark tourism at Ningaloo Marine Park in Western Australia. The findings from this research concur with previous studies of wildlife tourism showing that wildlife tourism operations are reliant on more informal and general forms of promotion, in particular word of mouth and guide books. Conversely, more deliberate marketing mechanisms, such as the internet and documentaries, are not extensively utilised. To disaggregate consumer preferences for various information sources, this article segments the population into more homogenous groups, thereby demonstrating distinct differences in the choice of information source based on the participants’ normal place of residence.     

Dairy Tariff-Quota Liberalization: Contrasting Bilateral and Most Favored Nation Reform Options

A highly disaggregated, "tariff line," source-differentiated, partial equilibrium model of U.S. specialty cheese imports is developed to investigate reform options for tariff-rate quotas (TRQs). A mixed-complementarity framework is used to represent bilateral and most favored nation (MFN) tariff quotas. The impacts of liberalizing U.S. specialty cheese imports via bilateral and MFN quota expansions, out-of-quota tariff cuts, and simultaneous liberalization scenarios are evaluated. We find that the path of liberalization is quite different, depending on the reform approach undertaken, particularly if the United States adopted an MFN quota administration mechanism for specialty cheese imports.     

Meat and milk self-sufficiency in Asia: forecast trends and implications

Recent structural changes in dietary patterns in Asia resulting from economic development are placing increasing pressure on the existing production systems in the region-particularly those systems producing ruminant meat, non-ruminant meat and milk. This has significant policy implications for the countries in the region in terms of self-sufficiency goals in these commodities and the associated inter-and intra-regional trade opportunities in the future. Forecasts of ruminant meat, non-ruminant meat and milk production and consumption for selected Asian countries between the years 2000 and 2010 revealed the following: China, Pakistan and Viet Nam are likely to be self-sufficient with respect to ruminant meat; Malaysia is likely to continue to be a net importer of ruminant meat; India and Malaysia will be more than self-sufficient with respect to non-runvinant meat with the converse being true for Pakistan; and India, Laos and Pakistan will be self-sufficient with respect to milk production with the possibility of Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia becoming self-sufficient if the current trends continue. Structural changes in the early 1980s generally resulted in higher average annual growth rates of production-particularly in non-ruminant meat production. Thus forecasts of ruminant meat production and consumption by 2000 using the medium-term average annual growth rates for production present a more favourable outcome in terms of self-sufficiency for countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Viet Nam but a less favourable outcome for countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos and India. Similar forecasts for non-ruminant meat indicated an improvement in the long-term non-ruminant self-sufficiency estimates for most cases-particularly for Bangladesh, China and Cambodia. Intensification and commercialisation of meat production systems have increased meat self-sufficiency in a number of countries but often at the expense of grain self-sufficiency. Given these trends, the impact of trade liberalisation measures on livestock production in the region and inter-and intra-regional trade of livestock commodities and grain is likely to be significant.     

The Trade-off Between the Selling Price of Residential Properties and Time-on-the-Market: The Impact of Price Setting

When a house is placed on the market, the seller must choose the initial offer price. Setting the price too high or too low affects the marketability of the property. While there is near universal agreement that the seller faces a trade-off between selling at a higher price and selling in less time, there is less agreement about how to measure this trade-off. This paper offers a framework for analysis and shows that an increase in the list price increases expected time-on-the-market (TOM). Because house buyers must solve a type of signal extraction problem, the effect of a higher list price is magnified for houses in a market segment having a low predicted variance of the list price. This paper also shows that the list price of houses which are withdrawn before sale has a higher mean and variance, and that the possibility of withdrawal censors information about the time-on-the-market.     

The Construction and Presentation of Performance Indicators in executive Agency External Reports

For a variety of reasons, factors affecting the understandability and comparability of performance indicators, and perceptions of their status, may differ from those applying in the case of profit-seeking sector financial statements. This study examines the construction and presentation of performance indicators from the perspective of understandability, comparability and perceived importance. It identifies a number of aspects of reporting practice which may undermine these qualities.