Accrual Accounting and Budgeting Systems Issues in Australian Governments

Much confusion has resulted from the adoption of two accrual accounting and budgeting systems by Australian governments — the Government Finance Statistics system and the Australian Accounting Standards system — as each reports vastly different results. Which set of results should be believed and approved by parliament? Further, termination of the former cash accounting system has deprived governments of important information. The systems are examined here, and use of an enhanced GFS system, which incorporates the cash system, is recommended.     

Public and Private Sector Accounting - The Non-identical Twins

A debate in this journal, spanning severa1 years, over the accounting treatment of public assets has concentrated attention on the appropriateness of the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board's decision to apply private sector accounting concepts to the development of public sector accounting standards. The Case is examined here and it is shown why private sector accounting standards must be appropriately adapted to suit a very different and varied operating environment in the public sector. These differences have been largely ignored, with resulting problems for public sector accounting standards.     

Disagreement and Biases in Inflation Expectations

Disagreement in inflation expectations observed from survey data varies systematically over time in a way that reflects the level and variance of current inflation. This paper offers a simple explanation for these facts based on asymmetries in the forecasters' costs of over- and underpredicting inflation. Our model implies (i) biased forecasts, (ii) positive serial correlation in forecast errors, (iii) a cross-sectional dispersion that rises with the level and the variance of the inflation rate, and (iv) predictability of forecast errors at different horizons by means of the spread between the short- and long-term variance of inflation. We find empirically that these patterns are present in inflation forecasts from the Survey of Professional Forecasters. A constant bias component, not explained by asymmetric loss and rational expectations, is required to explain the shift in the sign of the bias observed for a substantial portion of forecasters around 1982.     

Causal Relationships in Australian Wage Inflation and Minimum Award Rates*

When variables are correlated in time-series studies, it is often difficult to determine which is cause and effect, and in what sense. This paper applies multivariate time-series tests of causality to Australian wage, price, minimum wage award, labour demand and strike (working days lost) variables for 1953-76. The results provide tentative support for a model in which strikes are exogenous:the size of Arbitration Commission awards is determined by strikes (suggesting that a trade union capture theory of Arbitration Commission regulation may apply):money wages are determined by minimum wage awards; and the demand for labour variable (measured in this paper by the ratio of actual to potential output) is determined (in a negative relationship) by money wages.     

THE IMPACT OF TRADE AND INVESTMENT AGREEMENTS ON AUSTRALIA'S INWARD FDI FLOWS

International trade and investment agreements are one of the primary instruments of global financial liberalisation. They are enacted to enhance the flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) between signatories by reducing regulatory barriers to investment; promoting stable host investment environments; and guaranteeing investors against non‐commercial risk. As a net capital importer, Australia has sought to attract FDI through participation in such accords since the early 1980s. This paper examines the determinants of Australia's inward FDI flows—focussing specifically on the effects of trade and investment agreements. Using panel data, we find that both bilateral trade and bilateral and multilateral investment agreements attract FDI flows into Australia, thereby indicating that the policy of enticing FDI through participation in these accords is quite possibly effective.     

Cash Flow News and Stock Price Dynamics

We develop a new approach to modeling dynamics in cash flows extracted from daily firm-level dividend announcements. We decompose daily cash flow news into a persistent component, jumps, and temporary shocks. Empirically, we find that the persistent cash flow component is a highly significant predictor of future growth in dividends and consumption. Using a log-linearized present value model, we show that news about the persistent dividend growth component predicts stock returns consistent with asset pricing constraints implied by this model. News about the daily dividend growth process also helps explain concurrent return volatility and the probability of jumps in stock returns.