Is it U.S. GAAP or IFRS? Understanding how R&D costs affect ratio analysis

While financial reporting standards under U.S. GAAP and IFRS are fundamentally similar, differences do exist that may affect our analysis of company financial statements. This is particularly true when comparing a U.S. company following U.S. GAAP to a firm that uses IFRS. To illustrate, we compare research and development (R&D) accounting methods under both sets of standards and illustrate how they affect the analysis of financial results of firms in a specific industry—automotive manufacturers. Our results provide insight into settings in which differences in R&D accounting may have the greatest impact on financial analysis.     

Understanding the trend to mobile-only internet connections:A decomposition analysis

A growing portion of internet users rely solely on mobile devices such as smartphones for their online access. The percentage of “mobile-only” households increased from 9% in 2011 to 20% in 2015, more than doubling in only four years. As this shift continues, it leads to the question of what factors are driving the rise in mobile-only adoption. Using nationally representative data, this study uses logistic regressions and a decomposition technique to understand the trend. The decomposition reveals that a significant portion (65%) of the growth was due to an increase in the download speeds of mobile networks. An increased acceptance of mobile-only access by households aged 55 and older was also partly responsible. Understanding (and developing a response to) the trend towards mobile-only adoption will be important as organizations and governments continue to work to close the digital divide.     

Mandatory IFRS adoption and management forecasts: The impact of enforcement changes

We examine how concurrent enforcement changes affect the positive relationship between mandatory IFRS adoption and firms’ voluntary disclosure. We show that the increase in the issuance of management forecasts after IFRS adoption is smaller for firms from IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes than for those from countries without such changes. We find no difference in the increase of forecast informativeness between firms from IFRS-mandating countries without concurrent enforcement changes and firms from non-IFRS-mandating countries; however, firms domiciled in IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes exhibit a significantly smaller increase in forecast informativeness. Our findings suggest that better IFRS enforcement distinctly weakens (strengthens) the positive effect of IFRS adoption on voluntary (mandatory) disclosure.     

Stochastic Technology, Risk Preferences, and Adoption of Site-Specific Technologies

A model of farmer decision making is developed to determine the extent to which uncertainties about soil fertility and weather affect the value of site-specific technologies (SSTs) using jointly estimated risk and technology parameters. Uncertainty can lead risk-averse farmers to apply more fertilizers and generate more pollution than in the certainty case. Ignoring uncertainty and risk aversion would overestimate the economic and environmental benefits of SSTs and underestimate the subsidy required to induce adoption. Accounting for uncertainties and risk preferences might explain the low observed adoption rates of SSTs. Improving the accuracy of SSTs would increase the incentives for adoption.     

The Recognition and Timing of Deferred Tax Liabilities

Abstract:   This paper examines the characteristics of firms that account for deferred tax liabilities related to government investment grants under an extended adoption timing period. Not only the recognition but also the timing decision is associated with changes in future performance and changes in the debt structure. Recognisers outperform non‐recognisers in the future, while early recognition is related to post recognition performance but only for those firms that currently perform well. Changes in the balance sheet structure are also related to both decisions. Firms with recent increases in the debt level tend to postpone recognition, while currently well‐performing firms that increase their future debt level are less likely to recognise deferred taxes.     

矿产资源勘探与评价会计准则的国际趋同研究

在会计准则国际趋同方面，澳大利亚走在了最前面。国际会计准则理事会（IASB）和澳大利亚会计准则委员会（AASB）同时发布了国际财务报告准则IFRS6和与其对应的澳大利亚准则AASB6-《矿产资源的勘探与评价》。通过比较AASB6与IFRS6的制定背景、框架结构和内容的异同，发现AASB6体现了AASB对会计准则国际趋同制定的总体策略，而且在与国际会计准则趋同的同时，充分体现了澳大利亚国情，这对完善我国的《石油天然气开采准则》应该有所启示。     

Herd Behaviour in Adoption of Network Technologies

In technology adoption, herd behaviour can lead to a suboptimal outcome as shown, among others, by Choi (1997). However, empirics find little support for the idea that a less efficient technology can conquer the market and lock out a more efficient one. Accordingly, we improve and generalize Choi's results, by introducing an additional source of uncertainty: the economic environment. We investigate how the economic environment can affect herding and consequently the efficiency of the technology choice. The result is a smaller adoption bias. In the limit, firms may optimally experiment with the new technology that turns out to be social welfare improving.     

Skill-Specific rather than General Education: A Reason for US–Europe Growth Differences?

In this paper, we develop a model of technology adoption and economic growth in which households optimally obtain either a concept-based, general education or a skill-specific, vocational education. General education is costly to obtain, but enables workers to operate new production technologies. Firms weigh the cost of adopting and operating new technologies against increased profits and optimally choose the level of adoption. We show that an economy whose policies favor vocational education will grow slower in equilibrium than one that favors general education. More importantly, the gap between their growth rates will increase with the growth rate of available technology. By characterizing the optimal Ramsey education policy we also demonstrate that the optimal subsidy for general education increases with the growth rate of available technology. Our theory suggests that European education policies that favored specialized, vocational education might have worked well, both in terms of growth rates and welfare, during the 1960s and 1970s when available technologies changed slowly. However, in the information age of the 1980s and 1990s when new technologies emerged at a more rapid pace, they might have contributed to an increased growth gap relative to the United States.     

Timing and Commitment of Environmental Policy,Adoption of New Technology,and Repercussions on R&;D

We investigate the interplay between environmental policy, incentives to adoptnew technology, and repercussions on R&D. We study a model where a monopolistic upstream firm engages in R&D and sells advanced abatement technology to polluting downstream firms. We consider four different timing and commitment regimes of environmental tax and permit policies: ex post taxation (or issuing permits), interim commitment to a tax rate (a quota of permits) after observing R&D success but before adoption, and finally two types of ex antecommitment before R&D activity, one with a unique tax rate (quota of permits), the other one with a menu of tax rates (permit quotas). We study the second best tax and permit policies and rank these with respect to welfare. In particular, we find that commitment to a menu of tax rate dominates all other policy regimes.     

《抽油泵及其组件规范》采标的滞后问题

通过对2001年版API Spec 11AX《抽油泵及其组件规范》的研究分析，指出了新版标准的先进性、科学性和合理性，阐明GB／T18607—2001：API Spec 11AX(1996)《抽油泵及其组件规范》在采标中存在滞后问题。