The Tax‐smoothing Hypothesis: Evidence from Sweden, 1952–1999

This paper tests Barro's (1979) tax‐smoothing hypothesis using Swedish central government data for the period 1952–1999. According to the tax‐smoothing hypothesis, the government sets the budget surplus equal to expected changes in government expenditure. When expenditure is expected to increase, the government runs a budget surplus, and when expenditure is expected to fall, the government runs a budget deficit. The empirical evidence suggests that the model provides a useful benchmark and that tax‐smoothing behavior can explain about 60 percent of the variability in the Swedish central government budget surplus.     

The relevance of currency risk in the EMU

We investigate how the elimination of intra-European exchange risk may affect international financial markets using a conditional version of the International CAPM. We estimate the EMU and non-EMU components of aggregate currency risk and document significant exposures to both. The premium for EMU risk is positive and associated with exposure to the French, Italian and Spanish currencies. The premium for non-EMU risk is consistently negative and accounts for most of the aggregate currency premiums. In the 1990s, exposures to EMU risk declined significantly while exposures to non-EMU risk increased. Hence the adoption of the Euro is unlikely to have a large impact on aggregate currency risk premiums.     

Policy Issues Raised by For-Profit Spinoffs from Professional Associations: An Evaluation of a Recent AICPA Initiative

This paper provides an evaluation of the spinoff of a for-profit company from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), a nonprofit professional association. The evaluation is based on a review of the literature on public policy issues surrounding organizational conversions from nonprofit to for-profit legal status. Many criticisms of this for-profit spinoff were voiced by professional leaders and accounting regulators, and we demonstrate that these criticisms are grounded in widely recognized policy principles relating to nonprofit conversions. The public policy issues raised by this study have implications for the governance of professional associations in all disciplines.     

关于我国个人所得税征管信息化建设的对策建议

实现个人所得税的征管信息化 ,不但是国际潮流的大势所趋 ,也是摆在我国税务部门面前的当务之急。本文对我国税收信息化建设的现状、不足作了分析 ,并结合国外税收信息化建设的成功经验 ,对我国的个人所得税征管信息化建设提出了对策建议。     

Applying continuous improvement to teaching in another culture

As international business programs proliferate, the mixing of many cultures in the classroom creates new teaching challenges. This paper reports on how an American accounting professor coped with cultural differences at INSEAD in France. Student evaluations for the first course taught at INSEAD revealed a variety of problems that the professor tried to resolve by applying the principles of continuous improvement in the next course he taught. Confronting the students directly with the problem, enlisting their aid in improving the course, and eliciting specific feedback all combined to substantially raise the level of student satisfaction. The principles applied in this intervention are broadly applicable to college professors, not only those working with “international” students.     

Sources of Bank Interest Rate Risk

We investigate bank stocks'sensitivity to changes in interest rates and the factors affecting this sensitivity. We focus on whether the exposure of commercial banks to interest rate risk is conditioned on certain balance sheet and income statement ratios. We find a significantly negative relation between bank stock returns and changes in interest rates over the period 1991–1996. We also find that bank characteristics measured from basic financial statement information explain bank stocks'sensitivity to interest rate changes. These results suggest that bank managers, analysts, and regulators can use this information to assess the relative risk exposure of banks.     

中国财政性教育投资的实证分析与对策研究

在现代市场经济社会里 ,几乎所有国家的政府投资在为全社会提供教育服务方面都起着主导作用。我国财政性教育投资严重不足 ,而且教育投资结构很不合理 ,因此必须改变教育投资观念 ,切实、稳定增加财政的教育投资 ,优化财政教育投资结构     

Optimal Contracts for Central Bankers: Inflation versus Money Supply and Exchange Rate Targets

Some recent papers have shown how a simple contract can eliminate the inflationary bias of discretionary monetary policy. This paper shows that if the central banker is risk averse, a contract in terms of money is superior to one in terms of inflation. The paper also shows that, if the central banker cares about his reappointment, an exchange rate target might always leads to the implementation of the optimal policy.     

Price Rigidity and the Selection of the Exchange Rate Regime

We evaluate and qualify Friedman's, 1953, “case for flexible exchange rates” in the presence of sticky prices in a two country model. We find that a flexible regime performs indeed better when the degree of nominal price rigidity is high while a bilateral peg does better when prices are fairly flexible. This result obtains independent of whether monetary policy is activistic or not and is mostly due to the negative relationship between employment and productivity shocks when prices are relatively sluggish (Gali, 1999). A unilateral peg tends to produce the lowest level of world welfare but it sometimes represents the best monetary arrangement for the pegger. JEL Classification Numbers: E32, E52, F33, F42     

中外纳税人权利问题比较研究

世界各国尤其是发达国家一贯重视纳税人权利问题,在税法中把征纳双方平等的权利与义务作为重要的内容予以规定。与国外相比,我国纳税人权利不论从法律规定还是贯彻落实上都存在一些不足,纳税人地位没有得到应有的提高。通过分析中外纳税人权利地位现状,提出尊重纳税人权利,提高纳税人地位的可能措施。