Earnings inequality and the informal economy

We analyse the extent and evolution of informality and inequality in the Serbian labour market between 2002 and 2007, using data from the Living Standard Measurement Surveys. Two surprising results emerge. First, the level of informal employment has risen significantly over the period, despite strong economic growth and the introduction of a range of market‐oriented reforms. Secondly, the level of inequality in earnings seems to have remained more or less constant over the period, in contrast to the experience of other countries at a similar stage of transition. We show that informal employees earn significantly less than those in the formal sector, controlling for a range of other variables, and informality plays an increasingly important role in explaining earnings inequality.     

Government Size,the Role of Commitments*

We explore the hypothesis that long‐term commitments affect the dynamics of government expenditure. With the aid of a simple median‐voter model we interpret the pattern of increasing‐then‐constant tax rates observed in OECD countries in the second half of the last century: persistence of public expenditure and a lower bound on new interventions will push government size upward, and preferences of the electorate put a halt to this growth at some point. In this view, the fiscal policy variable is seen to consist of only a part of the total expenditure, the rest being predetermined by its past level.     

普通小球藻对直接大红4B染料的降解作用研究

利用紫外-可见吸收光谱、高效液相色谱、傅立叶转换红外光谱分析以及溶液pH值测定,研究普通小球藻对直接大红4B染料溶液的降解作用。结果表明:普通小球藻对染料的降解必须在光的协同作用下进行,模拟太阳光的协同降解效果最好;染料的降解效果随普通小球藻的浓度与照射光强度的增加而增强,掺藻浓度16×108 cells/L的染料溶液,光照5 h的脱色率达到86%以上,降解速度在染料浓度比较高的初期较大;普通小球藻在对直接大红4B溶液的降解过程中不会产生中间产物;随着降解时间的延长,溶液的pH值在不断降低。     

提高英语单词记忆效率的策略选择

为帮助学生在有限的时间里记忆更多的单词,笔者根据自己多年教学的心得体会,总结、归纳实用有效的四级单词的记忆方法,包括重复循环记忆法、词缀记忆法等,并对具体方法的实施提出了自己的见解。     

Cournot Competition and Hit-and-Run Entry and Exit in a Teaching Experiment

Instructors can use a computerized experiment to introduce students to imperfect competition in courses on introductory economics, industrial organization, game theory, and strategy and management. In addition to introducing students to strategic thinking in general, the experiment serves to demonstrate that profits of a firm fall as the number of competitors is increased in a market and that firms enter profitable markets. The authors have used the experiment in undergraduate classes on strategy and management as well as in master of business administration courses with great success.     

Audit Market Response to PCAOB Censures of US Big 4 Firms

Abstract

Subsequent to the first-ever Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) censure of a US Big 4 firm (Deloitte) in December 2007, there were two other PCAOB US Big 4 firm censures as of 2016 year-end. We examine whether these two post-2007 PCAOB censures of US Big 4 firms conveyed new information to the audit market. For both censures, we find little or no evidence of any change in the factual audit quality of the censured firm over a three-year window surrounding the censure. Our findings suggest that the quality control deficiencies (identified during inspection of specific audit engagements) that triggered the PCAOB censure were isolated occurrences rather than systemic to the firm at large, i.e., the censures do not imply an impairment in the US Big 4 firm's overall factual audit quality. We also find that the negative response of investors and audit committees documented in prior research for the 2007 Deloitte censure disappeared for the later US Big 4 firm censures. Given that the PCAOB inspects (and can censure) non-US auditors who audit US-listed foreign companies, our findings are of potential interest to regulators, investors and audit committees outside the US.     

4PL模式下基于时间资源调度的供应成本优化研究

订单时间是影响供应成本的主要因素,合理的进行时间资源调度更是供应成本优化的关键所在。现有的第四方物流(Fourth Party Logistics,4PL)路径优化研究只关注物流环节的时间和成本因素,没有与物流上一环节的整合。本文提出将4PL服务拓展到客户的生产环节,在供应商的生产时间窗约束下,构建模型得到生产时间与物流时间的最优组合方案使供应商供应成本最低。最后基于一个实例的分析,验证了该模型能有效帮助4PL为客户提供最优供应方案。     

Big Five Audits and Accounting Fraud*

We examine the association between Big Five audits and the incidence of accounting frauds allegedly committed by U.S. public companies between 1981 and 2001. Many commentators argue that the prominent financial reporting failures that led to major corporate governance reforms cast serious doubt on whether the large public accounting firms continue to supply relatively high‐quality audits, especially in recent years. However, in unmatched and matched samples, we provide strong, robust evidence that fraudulent financial reporting becomes less likely with the presence of a Big Five auditor. Importantly, time‐series tests suggest that the Big Five are consistently associated with a lower incidence of fraudulent accounting, including in the last five years of our sample period when the number of frauds soared. Moreover, we find evidence implying that these relations are causal rather than an artifact of endogeneity in auditor choice.     

External Financing,Growth and Stock Returns

In this paper we investigate the relation of the value/growth anomaly with the anomaly on corporate financing activities. We confirm and expand earlier results that value/growth and external financing indicators are, to some degree, related predictors of stock returns in the cross section. We show that external financing indicators are incrementally informative since they pick up stock returns associated with earnings quality. Portfolios that combine information from both these indicators generate significantly higher returns than portfolios containing each individual indicator. More importantly, our analysis strongly suggests that the external financing anomaly is, to some extent, distinct from the value/growth anomaly, in that it may also reflect investors’ misunderstanding of the effects of opportunistic earnings management.     

浅谈IPv6技术的发展前景及影响

IPv6作为新一代互联网的核心协议,必将取代IPv4。本文通过对IPv6特点和发展现状的简要描述,论述IPv6现状及前景,IPv6终将代替IPv4,以适应时代发展的需要。所以IPv6技术越来越受到人们的关注与讨论。