Has the IASB Been Successful in Making Accounting Earnings More Useful for Prediction and Valuation? UK Evidence

When producing International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), one of the main goals of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) was to create a set of standards which were more useful to investors as a predictive tool. We assess the success of the IASB in achieving this goal by investigating the effects of the introduction of IFRS on the relative information content of reported earnings and forecasted earnings under UK generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) and IFRS. Results indicate that the value relevance of forecasted earnings is significantly lower under IFRS while the value relevance of reported earnings is significantly larger. These findings suggest that IFRS substitutes price‐relevant information previously provided to the market in the form of analyst forecasts with information encoded by companies in their reported earnings. This implies that the IASB was indeed successful in its stated goal and points towards IFRS forecasts being more accurate and less dispersed than UK GAAP forecasts. This, in turn, implies that analysts are able to provide more informative forecasts under IFRS than under pre‐IFRS regimes and that the aforementioned substitution effect is not a consequence of any decrease in the quality of forecasts under the new regime.     

Efficiency of health care delivery systems: effects of health insurance coverage

Health insurance expansions may increase the demand for care-creating incentives for health systems to increase input consumption. The possibility remains that added capacity and personnel will have little effect on health outcomes, decreasing the technical efficiency of health care delivery systems. We estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in health insurance coverage decreases the technical efficiency of health care delivery by 1.3 percentage points, translating into approximately 50 billion dollars in additional health expenditures. This finding uncovers a previously unexplored consequence of changes in health insurance on the supply side of health care markets suggesting one avenue through which health care costs growth may occur.     

Is Positive Always Positive? The Effects of Precrisis Media Coverage on Rumor Refutation Effectiveness in Social Media

While providing an unparalleled platform to enable consumers to share information easily with others, social media also threatens organizational control of information and increases risk when organizations become the focus of harmful rumors. Denials, or statements refuting rumors, are able to reduce consumers’ belief in and intention to share rumors. However, the evidence of their effectiveness is not uniformly supportive. Although scholars have highlighted the importance of identifying the moderators for rumor refutation effectiveness, media, as one of the essential infomediaries to shape consumers’ perceptions about firms, was largely overlooked in literatures. This study, therefore, explores the extent to which effective rumor refutation is a function of precrisis media coverage. Drawing on the literature in expectancy violation and media influences on social perceptions, we assessed the influence of precrisis media coverage on rumor refutation effectiveness in a scenario-based experiment. The findings suggest that the tenor of media coverage moderates the relationship between the quality of refutation arguments and refutation effectiveness. When the media coverage is positive, high-quality refutation arguments will not result in significant lower levels of belief in, and intentions to share, the rumor than low-quality arguments. This study contributes a clearer understanding of rumor refutation effectiveness, as well as furnishing important insights regarding the value of media coverage and reputation.     

医疗保险风险调剂机制在全民医保制度构建中的应用

自荷兰、德国等国发端的医疗保险风险调剂机制在世界“全民医保”浪潮中越来越受到重视,并逐渐成为各国政府整合分散医保基金的重要手段。我国以“全民医保”为目标的新一轮医改是建立在财政分权、县域统筹等制度背景下的,医疗保险基金“碎片化”问题十分突出。科学引入医疗保险风险调剂机制,改变现有粗放的“调剂金”管理模式,有助于我们既兼...     

我国农村社会养老保险覆盖率的实证考察与政策建议

基于2003年～2010年相关数据,运用社会养老保险制度覆盖率计算公式,对农村社会养老保险覆盖率从纵向和横向(城乡差异)进行实证比较分析,指出制度模式、农民的收入水平、制度保障水平、城镇社会养老保险的历史债务以及社会养老保险关系转移的便捷性等问题是造成"新农保"覆盖率较低的重要原因,并从加快制度推进、提供多种制度模式、增加农民收入、提高制度保障水平以及以家庭为参保单位等方面,提出了政策建议。     

上市公司信息环境和分析师的盈利预测——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

分析师在证券市场中扮演着重要角色,而上市公司信息环境则直接将影响分析师作用的发挥。本文研究了我国上市公司信息环境对分析师预测行为的影响。实证研究表明：公司信息环境越差,证券分析师将越少使用历史会计信息,分析师向证券市场传递的增量信息就越多,相对历史会计信息而言,分析师预测信息的竞争力就越高。由于国内研究上市公司信息环境的文章相对较少,所以本文为国内分析师的盈利预测及相关研究提供了一个新视角。     

一种新的基于MR的移动网络越区覆盖判别算法

针对移动网络系统中普遍存在的越区覆盖问题,提出了一种新的低成本的越区覆盖判 别的新算法,从而提高网络的性能指标。该算法通过在Iub接口中实时采集信令MR帧,并对 其MR帧进行同步解析获取其帧结构中的相关数据,在考虑用户切换掉话的多种场景下提出了 基于邻区判别的越区覆盖侦测方案。实验结果显示该方法可以有效解决越区覆盖问题。     

Information flow between prediction markets,polls and media: Evidence from the 2008 presidential primaries

Are the forecast errors of election-eve polls themselves forecastable? We present evidence from the 2008 Democratic Party nomination race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton showing that the answer is yes. Both cross-sectional and time series evidence suggests that market prices contain information about election outcomes that polls taken shortly before the contests do not. Conversely, election surprises relative to polls too Granger cause subsequent price movements. We then investigate whether the additional information in prices could come from the media coverage of these campaigns, and uncover a set of complex relationships between pollster’s surprise, price movements, and various aspects of media coverage. Prices anticipate the balance and content of media coverage, but not the volume. On the other hand, it is the volume of media coverage, not the balance or content, that anticipates the surprise element in election outcomes. Moreover, Granger causality between prices and election surprises barely changes after controlling for media coverage, and causality from media volume to surprises persists too after controlling for price movements. Taken together, the results suggest that both prices and the volume of media coverage contain independent election-relevant information that is not captured in polls.