International lease-accounting reform and economic consequences: The views of U.K. users and preparers

In response to perceived difficulties with extant lease-accounting standards in operation worldwide, the G4+1 issued a discussion paper which proposes that all leases should be recognized on the balance sheet [ASB (1999). Leases: Implementation of a new approach, discussion paper. London: Accounting Standards Board]. Leasing is now on the active agenda of the IASB. A major difficulty faced by standard setters lies in overcoming the preparer/user lobbying imbalance and obtaining ex ante evidence on the likely impact of regulatory reform. This paper contributes to the ongoing international debate by conducting a questionnaire survey of U.K. users and preparers to assess their views on proposals for lease-accounting reform and on the potential economic consequences of their adoption. The results, based on 132 responses, indicate that both groups accept that there are deficiencies in the current rules, but they do not agree on the way forward and believe that the proposals would lead to significant economic consequences for key parties. The impact on respondents' views of familiarity with the proposals, level of lease usage, and company size, is also examined.     

Mass media and preferences for redistribution

This paper investigates how mass media potentially act on preferences for redistribution. Our hypothesis is that media contribute to shaping the value system of a person, which affects support for redistribution. A theoretical model is proposed which combines demand- and supply-driven media bias. On the demand side, the model considers two types of individuals: non-partisan, whose values are influenced by the media, and partisan, who have strong opinions not affected by the media. We assume that although partisan individuals prefer unbiased information, they hold beliefs that they like to be confirmed; therefore, they tend to consume media with an ideological position similar to theirs. On the supply side, we focus on interest groups’ pressure on media coverage. Our results suggest that the anti-equality lobby is willing to pay more than the competing lobby. Moreover, we show that media bias is a decreasing function of the advertising revenues and an increasing function of the relative weight of ideology vs pluralism in individuals’ demand for media. Adding a second media outlet reduces the likelihood of media bias but not its extent. Finally, if both lobbies are active, the two outlets’ ideological positions are polarised.     

Income Tax Accounting Policy Choice: Exposure Draft Responses and the Early Adoption Decision by Canadian Companies*

We extend prior literature through a detailed examination of the relationship between lobbying behavior and subsequent accounting standard adoption timing, using changes to a Canadian accounting standard with a prolonged transition period. We develop a model linking lobbying and adoption timing. We test hypotheses based on recontracting costs, information production costs, efforts to manage investor perceptions, and corporate governance practices to assess the ability of these factors to explain corporations' choice of adoption timing. We examine responses to the Income Taxes exposure draft using content analysis to identify trends in lobbying behavior. We evaluate the accounting standard adoption decision for Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) 300 firms using a LOGIT model. Our findings indicate that early adoption appears to be most prevalent for firms that benefit from improved financial statement performance. In contrast, late adopters tend to be firms that have lobbied standard‐setters regarding the out‐of‐pocket costs of the standard and that rate highly on certain corporate governance measures.     

Endogenous political organization and the value of trade agreements

In a bargaining model of endogenous protection, I introduce fixed costs of political-organization that need to be incurred by capitalists prior to actual lobbying. Unlike Maggi and Rodriguez-Clare [J. Pol. Econ. 106(3) (1998) 575] intersectoral capital mobility is disallowed. Nevertheless, I am still able to obtain their main result that a government with low bargaining power vis-à-vis the import-competing lobby precommits to a free-trade agreement. Further, with high fixed organizational costs, the government prefers to stay out of such agreements. Its maximum bargaining power consistent with signing a trade agreement has an inverse-V-shaped relationship with respect to the size of fixed costs.     

Politics, Processes and the Future of Australian Accounting Standards

The perspective of public interest and interest group theories of regulation is adopted to consider the future of Australian accounting standards following major reforms proposed by the Australian Commonwealth government as part of its 1997 Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (CLERP). Interest groups in the Australian environment are identified. Their lobbying had influenced the initial proposals; and their reactions when the CLERP proposals were published resulted in substantial modifications to the CLERP proposals, which had initially recommendedthat International Accounting Standards (IASs) be adopted as national standards from 1 January 1999.
The role of accounting standards and the structure of standard setting are explored. The political nature of standard setting is illustrated through a review of the CLERP proposals, submissions of various interest groups and the government's responses to them. The central arguments are that key assumptions underlying the CLERP proposals are flawed, and that the CLERP proposals could not achieve the outcomes desired of them.
It seems inevitable, however, that international standards eventually will supplant domestic standards. In the longer term, Australian standard setters seem destined to have a diminished role in the international standard setting arena.     

行业协会的游说行为及其影响因素分析

根据对中国的全国性行业协会的调查,文章首先描述了全国性行业协会的游说态度和游说行为的现状,在此基础上,对影响行业协会游说行为的因素进行了分析。实证分析的结果表明,协会对游说的态度、协会成立的年限、协会的自主性和协会的代表性等因素对行业协会的游说行为具有显著的影响,而协会的规模与游说行为不存在显著的相关关系。     

全球烟草管制与跨国公司的游说活动

各国对烟草业的管制都经历了对烟草危害性的逐步认识过程。跨国烟草公司为了维护其商业利益和优势,不断游说各国政府以影响其控烟政策的实施。近年来,烟草业管制出现的新趋势使跨国烟草公司感受到了巨大的压力,不得不另辟财源以降低烟草经营的风险。     

Politische Ökonomie der Rechnungslegung – Bisherige Forschungsergebnisse und künftige Forschungsperspektiven unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Lobbyingkonzepts

Particularly in the field of German research tradition concerning financial accounting thoughts about interpretation and development of standards are focal points. Along with the appearance of the information economics it became apparent that financial accounting is not only a technical vehicle but a social institution. By making accounting information publicly available it may have an effect on the distribution of economic income. Insofar the presumption is feasible that those players influence standard-setting whose welfare is directly affected by it. The above mentioned view that is rarely noted in the German-speaking countries is followed by the research approach so called ‘‘Political Economy of Accounting’’. Aim of this research approach is to explain the complex standard-setting process by considering the different parties within a society. The article at hand contributes to sum up state-of-the-art advancements in the field of scientific discourse concerned and provides an outlook on perspectives in this research area.     

Domestic Unionization and the Political Economy of Strategic Export Policy

This paper examines the effect of lobbying by a labor union and its parent firm on the argument for strategic export policy in a third market-unionized duopoly. The lobbying-induced export policy frequently deteriorates domestic welfare as compared with free trade. It is true that the politically-determined export policy can improve domestic welfare if the union's bargaining power is strong and the domestic government's responsiveness to political contributions is weak. However, even if the conditions are met, implementing the lobbying-induced export policy will not enhance domestic welfare more than improving labor–management relations. Moreover, the improvement of their relations will be hampered by the opportunity of their lobbying. These results indicate that strategic export policy toward a unionized duopoly should be restrained in light of political economy.     

Discussion of “The implications of unverifiable fair-value accounting: Evidence from the political economy of goodwill accounting”

Ramanna [2007. The implications of unverifiable fair-value accounting: evidence from the political economy of goodwill accounting, Journal of Accounting and Economics] provides interesting and novel evidence on how firms use contributions from their political action committees (PACs) to members of Congress as a means of lobbying for preferred positions on the two exposure drafts that led to SFAS-141 and SFAS-142. My discussion raises some concerns about his main conclusion: that pooling firms lobbied the FASB to obtain a “fair-value”-based impairment rule to facilitate their ability to manipulate financial statements. I offer a more benign explanation and make some other observations about how this line of research could proceed in the future.