IFRS within the Multi‐GAAP Canadian Reality: A Teaching and Learning Imperative for Intermediate Financial Accounting

Intermediate accounting instructors need to be engaged in the specific complexities and challenges of the new international financial reporting standards (IFRS) reality within the Canadian multi‐GAAP environment. Intermediate accounting courses are directly affected because they represent substantive coverage of the corporate reporting environment. In this article I make the case that these courses should primarily reflect IFRS standards in order to entrench IFRS competencies in students who wish to pursue a professional designation, to prepare students for the global environment, and to concentrate IFRS expertise issues in a robust instructor group. The competency maps of each of the three Canadian professional accounting bodies clearly reflect IFRS. Students can analyze the implications of major areas of policy differences between IFRS and private enterprise GAAP (PEGAAP) through specific targeted course coverage, but also through active learning elements, particularly research elements. This commentary reflects some of the active debate occurring regarding postsecondary curriculum as Canada adapts to IFRS and PEGAAP, and encourages action.     

Africa's Money in Africa

Workers' remittance and compensation of employees received in Sub‐Sahara Africa (SSA) increased from USD 1.398 billion in 1980 to USD 4.834 billion in 2000 and soared to USD 21.101 billion in 2010. The impact of remittance on recipient economy requires further empirical investigation as there has not been consensus on whether remittance induces “financial prodigality” or investment in Africa. Differing from extant studies, this study employed rule of law, regulatory quality and government effectiveness as indicators of institutional quality. This is with a view to exploring how institutional quality and financial depth interact with remittance to influence investment in 44 African countries (1995‐2010). The major finding from the study, inter alia, is that institutional quality and financial depth play complimentary role in influencing remittance for investment in Africa. This study concludes that the impact of Africa's money in Africa will be enhanced in the presence of reliable institutional quality and viable financial sector. Thus, the side effect of “financial prodigality” that might be associated with remittance can be ameliorated.     

Property rights, production technology, and deforestation: cocoa in Cameroon

In this article, we use a vintage‐capital model with risk of eviction to assess cocoa farmers' response to changes in their tenure security and to the introduction of a new, faster‐maturing cocoa variety. The model is calibrated with data from Cameroon in calendar year 2000, and then used to simulate the effects of institutional and technical change on farmer welfare and deforestation rates. Our findings can be summarized in three points. First, improved tenure security over cocoa fields increases farmers' consumption and welfare, but at the expense of more deforestation. Second, the introduction of new cocoa varieties with faster maturity and higher input response also unambiguously raises farmers' consumption and welfare. Doing so increases deforestation under insecure land tenure, but slows down deforestation under secure land tenure. Third, when introducing the two innovations together (more security and also new varieties), there is both an increase in welfare and a decline in deforestation. In sum, the availability of new cocoa cultivars calls for stronger tenure security, to accommodate investment in the new technology without increasing deforestation.     

Male–female wage discrimination in Chinese industryInvestigation using firm‐level data1

We use firm‐level data to analyze male–female wage discrimination in China's industry. We find that there is a significant negative association between wages and the share of female workers in a firm's labour force. However, we also find that the marginal productivity of female workers is significantly lower than that of male workers. Comparing wage gaps and productivity gaps between men and women, we notice an intriguing contrast between state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms. The wage gap is smaller than the productivity gap in SOEs, while the converse is true for private firms. These results suggest that women in the state sector receive wage premiums, whereas women in the private sector face wage discrimination.     

Why the marriage squeeze cannot cause dowry inflation

An influential explanation for rising dowry payments is the “marriage squeeze”. The present paper shows this explanation to be internally inconsistent. The marriage squeeze argument for inflation relies on the fact that population growth leads to an excess supply of brides in the marriage market. This excess supply is resolved by some women postponing marriage, so that the average age of brides increases. In previous studies the argument is stated informally. Here, a matching model of marriage is developed to formally analyze the link between dowry payments and population growth. It is shown that a marriage squeeze cannot yield dowry inflation. In fact, when women who do not find matches at the ‘desirable’ marrying age re-enter the marriage market as older brides, a marriage squeeze is shown to imply dowry deflation. Population change is therefore not a promising explanation for the observed increases in dowry payments.     

Informal export barriers and poverty

This paper investigates the poverty impacts of informal export barriers like transport costs, cumbersome customs practices, costly regulations and bribes. In low-income countries, these informal barriers act as export taxes that distort the efficient allocation of resources, lower wages and agricultural income, and increase poverty. I investigate the case of Moldova, a very open economy where poverty is widespread, agriculture is a key sector, formal trade barriers are low, and informal export barriers are widespread. I find that improving export practices would benefit the average Moldovan household across the whole income distribution. Poverty would also decline, affecting 100-180 thousand individuals.     

Risk, uncertainty, and learning in adoption of a crop innovation

Risk and uncertainty have often been suggested as causes of poor adoption of rural innovations, but empirical evidence has been scarce. This study focuses on a new crop‐type, chickpeas, in Western Australia to gather such evidence. The empirical models developed are based on a theoretical framework that conceptualizes adoption as a dynamic decision process involving information acquisition and learning‐by‐doing by growers who vary in their managerial abilities, risk preferences, and their perceptions of the profitability and riskiness of the innovation. Learning encompasses improvements in skill as well as reductions in uncertainty. An annual face‐to‐face survey of over 100 farmers was conducted over 3 years, eliciting the farmers' risk attitudes and their subjective distributions of yields and prices. Two limited dependent variable models, Tobit and Probit, are used to estimate the empirical model. There is a high degree of goodness‐of‐fit for both models. The study provides strong empirical support for the primarily economic character of the adoption decision, and highlight the importance of economic risk in the process. The two risk‐related factors with greatest impact on the adoption decision were risk aversion and relative riskiness of the innovation. Risk aversion tended to reduce adoption, and to do so to a greater extent as relative riskiness and scale increased. Results also reveal the key role that trialing of the innovation plays in adoption.     

Gender inequalities in ownership and control of land in Africa: myth and reality

Lack of clarity behind measurement and interpretation of statistics on gender and land leads to an inability to clearly articulate a policy response to the potential inequalities faced by women and men. This article sets out to explore, conceptually and empirically, the levels and relative inequalities in land rights between women and men in African countries. The first section of the article engages in a conceptual discussion of how to measure gendered‐land outcomes, what ownership and control mean in different contexts, and why attention to these factors is important for the development of gender and land statistics. The second section of the article systematically reviews existing evidence from microlevel large sample studies to summarize recent trends in land access, ownership, and control by sex. The third section presents new statistics from a variety of nationally representative and large‐scale unpublished data on gender and land in Africa. Results provide not only a nuanced understanding of the importance of measuring land indicators for gendered development in Africa and globally but also new statistics on a variety of land outcomes to aid stakeholders in the discussion of gender‐land inequalities.