Mandatory IFRS adoption and the cost of debt in Italy and UK

This paper analyses the effect of the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) within the EU on the cost of corporate debt. In order to avoid the imprecision involved in a large-scale cross-country study, we examine the impact of IFRS in two very clearly different institutional settings, the UK and Italy. The UK is a common-law country characterised by strong enforcement and national generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) which are equivalent to IFRS. Italy is a typical European code-law country, characterised by a weak outside investor protection system, and national GAAP significantly different from the IFRS model. No IFRS effect is observed in the UK, consistent with it having standards which are close to IFRS. During the post-IFRS period, in Italy more weight is placed on the accounting numbers to assess the cost of debt. We also find that accruals quality improves in Italy, thus suggesting that public financial reporting data are enhanced relative to privately held information about borrowers' credit ratings.     

How Top‐down and Bottom‐up Budgeting Affect Budget Slack and Performance through Social and Economic Exchange

This paper investigates the effects of a top‐down (TD) versus bottom‐up (BU) orientation in different stages of the budgetary target‐setting process on slack and managerial performance. We use social exchange theory to explain the outcomes of these alternative budgetary arrangements, and complement the traditional focus on budgetary participation in target setting with a process‐oriented perspective. We develop hypotheses predicting that TD and BU orientations in the subsequent stages of the budgeting process have different effects on managers’ exchange relationships with the firm, and their behavioural responses. Using survey evidence from German managers across 127 firms we find that a TD orientation in the issuance of guidelines enhances economic exchange and that a BU orientation in the development of the initial budget proposal enhances social exchange, which in turn are associated with reduced slack and higher performance, respectively.     

Group versus individual compensation schemes for senior executives and firm performance: Some evidence based on archival data

The objectives of this paper are (i) to provide evidence on the association between the choice of group versus individual compensation schemes for senior executives and firm characteristics, and (ii) to provide evidence on the economic consequences of adopting a particular compensation scheme. Our key findings based on 2517 firm years for the period of 2001–2010 show that on average, the choice between group or individual compensation schemes for senior executive compensation schemes are consistent with a firm’s economic characteristics and on average, the choice of compensation schemes does not affect subsequent firm performance. However, we find some evidence that firms that adopt compensation schemes inconsistent with their economic characteristics have lower subsequent performance. Our findings are robust to a number of sensitivity tests.     

不同外加剂对地质聚合物凝结硬化性能的影响

采用复合溶液作为碱激发剂的矿渣粉基地质聚合物通常具有凝结时间快、和易性较低等缺点.为改善地质聚合物的和易性并有效延长凝结时间,测试了12种外加剂对地质聚合物凝结硬化性能的影响.通过维卡仪试验及水泥与减水剂相容性试验,对掺有不同外加剂的地质聚合物净浆进行凝结时间与经时流动度损失测定,选取效果最佳的外加剂;通过配制不同掺量该外加剂的净浆和胶砂测定了地质聚合物的凝结时间、经时流动度损失和抗压强度,研究不同掺量该外加剂对于地质聚合物的影响.研究结果表明,硼酸的缓凝效果最为明显,在0～4.0％ 掺量范围内,地质聚合物的凝结时间随硼酸掺量提高而大幅度延长,经时流动度损失减小,抗压强度略微提高.     

Reference Pricing with Elastic Demand for Pharmaceuticals

In this paper, we re‐examine the properties of two commonly adopted government reimbursement schemes for pharmaceuticals: reference pricing and fixed percentage reimbursement. We depart from the previous literature by assuming that the individual demand is price‐sensitive and depends on the copayment rate (i.e., the part paid by each consumer). We obtain two novel results under reference pricing: first, as the copayment rate increases, so do pharmaceutical prices; second, this increase in pharmaceutical prices reduces social welfare. Whilst reference pricing does emerge as a preferable reimbursement scheme, demand elasticities and the copayment rate interact in complex ways. This leads (unexpectedly) to the possibility that a higher copayment rate (lower reimbursement rate) results in higher government expenditure.     

Thai inflation dynamics: A view from disaggregated price data

This paper utilizes disaggregated prices at the micro level to examine the patterns of price adjustment in Thailand. Among the key stylized facts, we found that the frequency of price changes are generally low, prices decreases are common, the size of price changes are large relative to the inflation rate, and there is significant dispersion in price levels as well as in the synchronicity of price changes across regions. To better understand the underlying sources of heterogeneous price dynamics, we conduct dynamic factor analyses and highlight the importance of relative price changes in driving the bulk of overall CPI movements. This suggests an important role of non-monetary factors in driving inflation. A significant Phillips curve relation is detected once idiosyncratic price changes are filtered out, reinforcing the importance of disaggregated analysis of price trends in the conduct of monetary policy.     

Marx and Sraffa: A Comment on Gehrke and Kurz

This comment focuses on the assertion by Gehrke and Kurz (2018) that the origin of the equations which formed the backbone of Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is not related in any way to Marx, and particularly Marx’s reproduction schemes, as argued by the late Giorgio Gilibert and myself. This comment argues that the 2018 article by Gehrke and Kurz makes significant—but unacknowledged—retreats from positions previously presented by the authors, and that the relevance of Marx and his reproduction schemes for the origin of Sraffa’s (1960) work for Production of Commodities is beyond reasonable doubt.     

Why has the United States continued to receive net investment income as a debtor country?

Why has the United States been able to keep receiving net international investment income as a debtor country? Several authors have pointed out that it is because US direct investments abroad have been generating better returns than have foreign direct investments in the United States. However, there is no consensus on why this is the case. This paper investigates this issue by conducting panel regressions to identify the main determinants of return on US direct investment abroad (RUSDIA) and those of return on foreign direct investment in the United States (RFDIUS), using data from 49 countries over the 1994–2013 period. Our findings suggest that the largest contributor to the RUSDIA‐RFDIUS gap is USDIA's advantage in the internalisation effect, which more than offset any negative age effect. The second largest contributor is income‐shifting activities by US‐controlled MNCs aiming to lower their overall tax payments. The third contributor is the negative age effect of inward FDI in the United States, which more than offset its weak internalisation effect. Altogether, those effects account for about 50% of the average return gap from 1994 to 2013. The contribution of the risk‐compensation hypothesis to the return gap is negligible.     

Inside the Black Box of IASB Standard Setting: Evidence from Board Meeting Audio Playbacks on the Amendment of IAS 19 (2011)

We provide evidence on the little researched internal sphere of private IASB standard setting, more specifically, on the dynamic of board discussions and the respective impact of exogenous input such as comment letters, the array of arguments evoked in IASB debates, individual board member contribution and board-staff relations. We conduct a content analysis of audio recordings of 14 IASB meetings on the amendment of IAS 19 Employee Benefits (2011) between November 2008 and February 2010. Our main findings comprise the argument-based handling of comment letters not being conditioned by the political or economic importance of the senders, the gatekeeper role of staff members in channelling exogenous input and their equal role in board discussions and the dominant reference to conceptual arguments there. We also point to the heterogeneous involvement of board members, their different attribution to key issues and to further observations regarding the meeting governance, board’s discussion culture and etiquette. Our paper adds to the literature on private IASB standard setting, pension accounting and group decision making.

Data: All data are available from the public sources identified in this paper     

Context,market economies and MNEs: The example of financial incentivization

This is a study of the relative utilization of reward systems within and between capitalist archetypes: the study includes not only a closer focus on diversity within and between coordinated market economies, but pays specific attention to the Japanese case, and a systematic comparison of the reward practices adopted by multinational enterprises vis-à-vis their local peers. The study uses the most recent (at the time of writing) wave of the Cranet international survey of HRM. We found clear, firm-level evidence that share schemes and performance related pay exhibit significant differences both within and between varieties of capitalism, highlighting the extent to which key features of reward system continue to vary according to institutional setting, and whether an organization is multinational or not.