Risk assessment and risk decision-making process related to hazardous installation in France

The chemical process industry gathers critical infrastructures since chemical plants represent for the society both an instrument to generate activity and benefits (production of goods, employment, services …), and an instrument that can harm people and the environment. This paper describes the risk assessment approach need in France for licensing hazardous installations, in particular those covered by the Seveso II Directive and the implication for land-use planning. The first part explains why the French risk assessment procedure is based on the quantitative evaluation of major accident scenarios with explicit criteria, and only on qualitative analysis of the risk reducing measures without explicit criteria. The second part shows some on-going evolutions in the risk assessment process in particular for the analysis of the safety barriers. In the third part, the authors share some thoughts on the risk decision-making process.     

商业银行操作风险的特征、成因及控制

商业银行操作风险的主要形式是欺诈,具有反控制、容易被能人所做、营销所为以及指标所驱的外包装所掩盖等特征;商业银行操作风险的成因包括内控的过程管理流于形式,对操作风险的认识不足,传统的管理观念和习惯影响组织执行力的发挥,对操作风险的管控缺乏历史数据支持和经验积累,对风险管理控制工作的职责认识存在偏差,业务创新加大操作风险概率等。商业银行为了改进操作风险管控体系必须加强内部控制制度建设,提高内控部门在防范银行操作风险中的监督作用,完善银行的公司治理结构,构建内控发展系统的整体框架。     

路透中国年金指数Ⅱ收益率与中国债券总指数收益率的交叉相关性分析

企业年金是中国城镇职工养老保险体系的第二支柱,企业年金的委托人通常以路透中国年金指数II收益率作为其投资组合的业绩比较基准,因此企业年金投资管理人在从事对基金投资管理的同时也关注路透中国年金指数II收益率的走势。本文旨在对路透中国年金指数II的收益率建立合适的线性时间序列模型,并根据历史数据对模型的拟合效果作出判断。文章分别建立了自回归滑动平局模型和多元回归模型,通过对历史数据的拟合发现多元回归模型较好。该模型反映了路透中国年金指数II的收益率与中国债券总指数回报率的交叉相关系数为0.48683。全文使用的是线性时间序列,可看成离散的随机过程,本文研究内容仅限于离散的情况。     

The effect of disclosing audit quality control deficiencies on non-audit tax services: Evidence from Deloitte’s 2007 PCAOB Part II inspection report

We examine whether public disclosure of Deloitte 2007 PCAOB Part II report, which identifies quality control deficiencies related to audits of income tax accounts, affects Deloitte’s auditor-provided tax services (APTS). Using a difference-in-differences model, we document a 17 percent lower likelihood of Deloitte’s audit clients employing APTS relative to clients of other annually inspected firms when the report is made public. We also find that the dampening effect of publicly disclosing the Part II report on Deloitte’s APTS is more evident among audit clients paying higher non-audit fees to auditors and those with more complex tax planning. These results suggest that revealing income tax-specific quality control deficiencies prompts audit clients to revise upward (downward) their expected costs (benefits) of perceived auditor independence impairment (knowledge spillover) stemming from APTS. Overall, our study suggests that public disclosure of audit firm-wide quality control deficiencies pertaining to audits of income tax accounts imposes a collateral damage to the inspected firm’s non-audit tax services, thereby providing a more complete understanding of the consequences of the PCAOB’s communications about quality control deficiencies in Part II reports.