Forecast quality improvement with Action Research: A success story at PharmaCo

There is a gap in the forecasting research surrounding the theory of integrating and improving forecasting in practice. The number of academically affiliated consultancies and knowledge transfer projects that there are around, due to a need for improvements in forecast quality, would suggest that many interventions and actions are taking place. However, the problems that surround practitioner understanding, learning and usage are rarely documented. This article takes the first step toward trying to rectify this situation by using the specific case study of a fully engaged company. A successful action research intervention in the Production Planning and Control work unit improved the use and understanding of the forecast function, contributing to substantial savings, enhanced communication and improved working practices.     

A hybrid information approach to predict corporate credit risk

This study proposes a hybrid information approach to predict corporate credit risk. In contrast to the previous literature that debates which credit risk model is the best, we pool information from a diverse set of structural and reduced‐form models to produce a model combination based on credit risk prediction. Compared with each single model, the pooled strategies yield consistently lower average risk prediction errors over time. We also find that while the reduced‐form models contribute more in the pooled strategies for speculative‐grade names and longer maturities, the structural models have higher weights for shorter maturities and investment grade names.     

Evaluating FOMC forecasts

Monetary policy outcomes have improved since the early 1980s. One factor contributing to the improvement is that Federal Reserve policymakers began reporting economic forecasts to Congress in 1979. These forecasts indicate what the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members think will be the likely consequence of their policies. We evaluate the accuracy of the FOMC forecasts relative to private sector forecasts, the forecasts of the Research Staff at the Board of Governors, and a naïve alternative. We find that the FOMC output forecasts were better than the naïve model and at least as good as those of the private sector and the Fed staff. The FOMC inflation forecasts were more accurate than the private sector forecasts and the naïve model; for the period ending in 1996, however, they were not as accurate as Fed staff inflation forecasts.     

基于AHP＋熵组合的相对发达地区新乡镇建设评价——以苏南三镇为例

面对新农村建设活跃和城市化进程加速，新乡镇建设也初见端倪，选取苏南三镇作为实证地点，构建相对发达地区新乡镇建设评价体系，利用主观赋权的层次分析法（AHP）和客观赋权的熵权法进行组合评价。     

运用GAHP法建立研发人员绩效考评体系

本文运用群体层次分析法(GAHP)结合研发人员自身的特点,建立多级研发人员绩效考评体系,运用Hadamard凸组合集结判断矩阵,解决了考评体系制定过程中受决策者主观偏好影响较大,考评指标难以定量描述的问题。并结合该体系在一家企业的应用,说明了其在研发人员绩效考评方面应用的有效性。     

Terrorism activities and long-term annual management forecasts

We study the effects of terrorist attacks on firms’ long-term annual management earnings forecasts bias. We find that the managers of firms located closer to the epicenters of attacks are more likely to issue optimistic long-term annual earnings forecasts relative to the managers of a control group of unaffected firms. The exposure effect is stronger for more severe terrorist events, and firms with more uncertain fundamentals and less geographic diversification. In addition, we document that managers’ forecast optimism intensifies for firms with stronger negative stock market reaction to the terrorist event, for CEOs with higher ability and for companies that are more likely to issue equity or engage in acquisitions following the terrorist event. Overall, our results are consistent with the idea that long-term annual earnings forecasts are used by managers to counterbalance the short-term pessimistic response to terrorist attacks.     

构建高校"两课"教学新模式--运用网络教育与传统教育互补优势提高"两课"教学效果

在以科技为主导的21世纪，网络多媒体教学已成为教育领域新兴的重要教学模式，将网络教育引入到“两课”教学建设中，探讨二者的优势互补作用，对激发“两课”的活力，充分发挥“两课”对大学生进行思想政治教育的主渠道和主阵地的作用是十分必要的。     

莆田市发展“医养一体化”服务模式的对策研究

随着银色浪潮来袭,如何养老已成为我国各城市重点关注的问题。将医疗机构、养老机构、社区医疗服务中心当中的医疗资源与养老资源进行共享交流,搭建“医养一体化”平台,是我国养老服务的发展趋势。论文研究了莆田市如何突破传统养老方式的局限性,推行“医养一体化”服务模式,探讨“医养一体化”平台的搭建对策。     

Macroeconomic forecasting using structural factor analysis

The use of a small number of underlying factors to summarize the information from a much larger set of information variables is one of the new frontiers in forecasting. In prior work, the estimated factors have not usually had a structural interpretation and the factors have not been chosen on a theoretical basis. In this paper we propose several variants of a general structural factor forecasting model, and use these to forecast certain key macroeconomic variables. We make the choice of factors more structurally meaningful by estimating factors from subsets of information variables, where these variables can be assigned to subsets on the basis of economic theory. We compare the forecasting performance of the structural factor forecasting model with that of a univariate AR model, a standard VAR model, and some non-structural factor forecasting models. The results suggest that our structural factor forecasting model performs significantly better in forecasting real activity variables, especially at short horizons.     

购买法和权益联合法合并会计报表的特征比较及其选择

1999 年清华同方以股权交换方式吸收合并山东鲁颖电子公司,会计方法上使用的是权益结合法。之后,新潮实业、青岛双星、龙电股份等 9 家上市公司换股吸收合并非上市公司均采用了权益联合法。迄今为止,我国关于合并会计处理方法还没有最终形成企业并购具体会计准则,仅在1996 年财政部发布了《企业合并(征求意见稿)》。在实务中,主要参照1997年财政部颁布的《企业兼并有关会计处理问题暂行规定》、《合并会计报表暂行规定》和《关于执行具体会计准则和〈股份有限公司会计制度〉有关会计问题的解答》,在这些规定中隐含着企业购买法下的合并会计方法问题,一直没有涉及企业股权联合的问题。文章分析了企业合并的两种不同的会计处理方法:购买法和权益结合法引起的经济后果的差异,尤其结合我国现有经济环境,对《企业合并》会计准则制定中涉及的相关问题提出粗浅看法。