Accrual accounting does not necessarily mean accrual accounting: Factors that counteract compliance with accounting standards in Swedish municipal accounting

The regulation of Swedish municipal accounting has undergone fundamental changes over recent decades. Municipal accounting became regulated by law the 1st of January, 1998 after having been merely voluntarily regulated in the past. In accordance with the legislation, a standard-setting body was formed, with responsibility for development and interpretation of generally accepted accounting principles for municipal accounting. Important aims of the legislation and reform were to suppress ‘creative’ accounting and to increase the level of harmonization and comparability. Using the lens of positive accounting theory as well as institutional theory, this paper describes and explains the impact of the legislation and standard setting in the Swedish municipal sector. We have used a triangulation approach, collecting data through a survey, documentary study and interviews. The overall results show that the reform has had a very limited impact on accounting practice. Compliance with accounting standards was in general poor. This result is in line with the assumptions of positive accounting theory. However, the study also shows that there are differences among the preparers which can be explained by institutional theory. Large municipalities produce better accounting information (i.e. more in line with generally accepted accounting principles) than the municipalities in general. Weak audit quality seems to be another important factor that explains the poor compliance with accounting standards.     

Commentary: Research Productivity Measurement and the Field of Academic Accounting*

The previous issue of Canadian Accounting Perspectives contained three studies that examined various aspects of performance measurement in universities. In this issue, we step back from the acts of performance measurement and disclosure to consider the context within which the demand for increased performance measurement has arisen. The current commentary considers the use of research productivity measures in the field of academic accounting and why the use of these measures is drawing such an equivocal response from academics in the field. Starting from three theoretical perspectives, we consider the use, response, and consequences associated with research productivity measurement.     

Agility index in the supply chain

To achieve a competitive edge in the rapidly changing business environment, companies must align with suppliers and customers to streamline operations, as well as working together to achieve a level of agility beyond individual companies. Consequently, agile supply chains are the dominant competitive vehicles. Embracing agile supply chain requires asking some important questions, namely: what exactly is agility and how can it be measured? Moreover, how can agility be effectively achieved and enhanced? Due to the ambiguity of agility assessment, most measures are described subjectively using linguistic terms. Thus, this study develops a fuzzy agility index (FAI) based on agility providers using fuzzy logic. The FAI comprises attribute’ ratings and corresponding weights, and is aggregated by a fuzzy weighted average. To illustrate the efficacy of the method, this study also evaluates the supply chain agility of a Taiwanese company. This evaluation demonstrates that the method can provide analysts with more informative and reliable information for decision.     

改革行政审批 重在制度创新

深化审批制度改革意义重大,势在必行.行政审批制度改革的重点应放在制度创新上,要改变法律规章制定的角度,根据新的需要建立新的法规,对确需保留的审批事项,要规范化,要大力推行政务公开制度,最终建立与社会主义市场经济相适应的新的行政审批制度.     

Development of a Fuzzy optimization model,supporting global warming decision-making

An increasing number of models have been developed to support global warming response policies. The model constructors are facing a lot of uncertainties which limit the evidence of these models. The support of climate policy decision-making is only possible in a semi-quantitative way, as presented by aFuzzy model. The model design is based on an optimization approach, integrated in a bounded risk decision-making framework. Given some regional emission-related and impact-related restrictions, optimal emission paths can be calculated. The focus is not only on carbon dioxide but on other greenhouse gases too. In the paper, the components of the model will be described. Cost coefficients, emission boundaries and impact boundaries are represented asFuzzy parameters. TheFuzzy model will be transformed into a computational one by using an approach of Rommelfanger. In the second part, some problems of applying the model to computations will be discussed. This includes discussions on the data situation and the presentation, as well as interpretation of results of sensitivity analyses. The advantage of theFuzzy approach is that the requirements regarding data precision are not so strong. Hence, the effort for data acquisition can be reduced and computations can be started earlier.     

选本与文学权力意志的外化——试论沈德潜诗歌选本批评的“正典”意识

沈德潜是清代著名的诗人和诗论家,曾选编了多部诗选集,以唐诗为基点,上溯先秦,下探清代,构建了一部比较完整的“诗史”。这部独具风格的诗史,以“温柔敦厚”的诗教立论,重视人品与诗品的合,一,严谨而又通侻认可诗歌创作风格的多样性,包容诗史“正”与“变”的多种样态,相对降低了唐宋诗之争所带来的负面效应。     

机构投资者对股票市场发展的影响分析

对于大力发展机构投资者能否对股票市场的发展起到稳定运行的作用,国际上在理论和经验研究上都没有形成确切的结论。由于我国股票市场起步于个人投资者,股市发展中的多次波动是理论界寄希望于大力发展机构投资者来稳定市场,事实上机构投资者未能起到稳定市场的作用,究其原因是我国股市属于不完全有效市场,上市公司质量低下等,给机构投资者的投机行为创造了很大的空间。本文从若干层面分析机构投资者对股市发展产生的影响,提出解决发展机构投资者对股市稳定运行的建议。     

市场主导与银行主导:金融体系变迁的金融契约理论考察

中国应该建立以银行为主导的金融体系还是以资本市场为主导的金融体系,这是当前金融改革面临的一个问题.本文在对世界上几个主要国家的金融体系演变历史进行考察的基础上,从金融契约理论的角度分析了这一问题.研究表明,经济力量是推动金融体系演变的内在原因,而政治制度在很大程度上约束、影响着金融体系的具体技术安排;此外一些广义的技术因素,如信息收集技术、处理技术等从外部对金融体系的现实演进也有不可忽视的作用.     

构建社会主义和谐社会的制度分析

制度安排是社会状态函数的一个关键性变量，因此，相应的制度安排是构建社会主义和谐社会的关键之所在。而和谐的制度安排应立足于其根本的“基础设施”——政府、市场、社会自身及其关系的和谐，然后构建其对策性的制度安排：合理的利益协调机制、利益沟通与谈判的机制、有序的社会流动机制、表达与参与机制、以社会公平、正义为核心的价值评价机制。     

Measures of implicit trading costs and buy–sell asymmetry

This paper shows that the widely documented buy–sell asymmetry in implicit institutional trading cost is mainly driven by mechanical characteristics of a specific class of measures: pre-trade measures. If a post-trade measure is used, the asymmetry is reversed in both rising and falling markets. Both pre-trade and post-trade measures are highly influenced by market movement, while during-trade measures are relatively neutral to market movement. I further show that a pre-trade measure can be decomposed into a market movement component and a during-trade measure, and empirically the market movement component is the dominant component. This paper demonstrates that simple mechanical characteristics of trading cost measures can have important implications for how empirical results are interpreted.