Management by decree. Paradoxes in the reform of the Italian public sector

A call for “better” governance of the public sphere informed by reliance on management and accounting expertise has recently arisen in connection with a variety of legislative initiatives enacted in Italy. This paper looks at the nature and role of this “reform”, and in particular the call for the introduction of managerial accounting. It is argued that far from facilitating a comprehensive introduction of managerial vocabulary and knowledge into the public domain, the Italian legislative mechanism tends to hamper the expression of management and accounting as technically autonomous and coherent systems, while at the same time allowing more established audiences to deliberate on their nature and role. Although the reform was devised in terms of introducing the economic and the measurable into the domains of bureaucracy and formal compliance, its legal articulation seems to be informed by the very logic and ethos it is called upon to change.     

国家审计公告制度研究

国家审计公告制度是目前我国审计理论界和实务界高度关注的一个问题。本文着重探讨了西方国家的审计公告制度的基本特点、我国国家审计公告制度中存在的问题,在此基础上提出了改进我国国家审计公告制度的建议,希望对推动我国国家审计的规范发展有所裨益。     

India's Economic Reforms: Achievements and Next Steps

This paper reviews the impact of India's reforms since 1991 on the performance of the Indian economy. It shows that the reforms definitely achieved a significant acceleration in growth and they also succeeded in reducing poverty. However, they have been less successful in generating good quality jobs. There was progress in providing better access to education, health services ,and clean drinking water and sanitation, but less than was hoped. The area where performance has been most disappointing is environmental sustainability. The paper concludes by identifying some of the critical policy challenges in the years ahead.     

How do telecommunications reforms affect labour market arrangements? Evidence from Central and Western Europe

This paper exploits variations in the timing of telecommunications reforms across Europe to investigate the relationship between the rise of alternative work arrangements and the emergence of the Internet. We evaluate whether sectors that are technologically more dependent on information and communication technologies (ICT) experienced disproportionately larger changes in their employment outcomes after telecommunications reforms were introduced. Our main results point to a disproportionate increase in total employment, part‐time work and home‐based work among ICT‐dependent sectors after the implementation of telecommunications reforms. These results suggest that telecommunications reforms affected labour market arrangements by fostering the adoption of ICT. The results are robust to several specifications.     

Economic liberalization and welfare in a model with an informal sector

The paper reexamines the conventional results relating to inflow of foreign capital, removal of protectionism and structural reform programmes, in a small open economy in terms of a two-sector general equilibrium model with an informal sector. The paper shows that in the presence of labour market distortion and a protectionist policy, inflow of foreign capital may be desirable irrespective of the pattern of trade of the economy due to its favourable impact on welfare. But the welfare implications of tariff reductions and/or structural adjustment programmes, such as deregulating the formal sector labour market, depend crucially on the economy's trade pattern. The paper provides an answer to the question as to whether in a developing economy labour market reform and tariff reform should go hand-in-hand or whether one should precede the other for welfare improvement.
JEL classification: F10, F13, F21, O17.     

审计师行业专长对审计收费的影响分析——来自2006～2007年我国审计市场的证据

本文在借鉴传统审计收费模型的基础上,采用我国A股上市公司2006～2007年的数据,对审计师行业专长与审计收费之间的相关关系进行实证分析.研究表明,我国的审计师行业专长程度较低,审计师行业专长与审计收费之间存在正相关关系.研究审计师行业专长与审计收费之间的关系对于规范审计定价行为、形成有效市场结构有重要意义.     

国有企业审计监督体系构建研究

在我国现行国有资产管理体制下,国有企业不仅要接受国有资产监管体系内部多种形式的监督,而且还要同时接受政府审计、社会审计和内部审计的监督。由于各种审计主体职责重复、各自为政,在导致审计资源严重浪费的同时,还造成许多国有企业长期缺乏有效的审计监督。本文从我国国有资产监管体系的现行架构出发,对政府审计、社会审计、内部审计及其他多种审计主体的分工与配合问题进行了研究,为国有企业建立合理有效的审计监督体系提供参考。     

基于风险视角的审计报告决策机制模型分析

本文引入风险决策理论的发展成果,从风险视角构建了基于两期的审计报告决策分析模型,对审计报告行为决策机制进行了深入分析,并在此基础上进一步讨论了影响审计独立性的重要因素及防范机制。     

Auditing Quality of Research in Social Sciences

A growing body of studies involves complex research processes facing many interpretations and iterations during the analyses. Complex research generally has an explorative in-depth qualitative nature. Because these studies rely less on standardized procedures of data gathering and analysis, it is often not clear how quality was insured or assured. However, one can not easily find techniques that are suitable for such complex research processes to assess the quality of the study. In this paper, we discuss and present a suitable validation procedure. We first discuss how ‘diagnosing’ quality involves three generic criteria. Next, we present findings of previous research in possible procedures to assure the quality of research in social sciences. We introduce the audit procedure designed by Halpern [(1983) Auditing Naturalistic Inquiries: The Development and Application of a Model. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University] we found an appropriate starting point for a suitable procedure for quality judgment. Subsequently, we will present a redesign of the original procedure, with according guidelines for the researcher (the auditee) and for the evaluator of the quality of the study (the auditor). With that design, we aim to enable researchers to bring forward their explorative qualitative studies as stronger and more equally valuable to studies that can rely on standardized procedures.     

公司治理与审计意见

本文实证分析了公司治理质量与审计意见类型的关系。研究表明：公司治理总体质量的高低与审计意见清洁度在统计上显著相关。董事长兼任总经理、董事会会议次数、第一大股东持股比例、国有股与不洁净意见正相关,异地上市与不洁净意见负相关。研究结论对上市公司、注册会计师和监管部门有借鉴意义。