Accounting practice,fiscal decentralization and corruption

In prior studies, accounting and decentralization corruption solutions have so far been analysed in isolation. In this article, we connect these two strands of literature on corruption. Understanding this connection is important because weak financial accounting and reporting systems can inhibit monitoring incentives and thus reduce decentralization benefits in countering corruption. We argue that the effectiveness of decentralization as an anti-corruption barrier is complemented by the quality of the accounting practice in a country. Using multiple sources of data, we find that decentralization has a positive and increasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with a high-quality accounting practice. In contrast, decentralization has a negative and decreasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with weak-quality accounting practices. These findings are robust to alternative measures of accounting, decentralization and corruption and to endogeneity tests. Our findings demonstrate the crucial information role of accounting in enhancing decentralization monitoring mechanisms and in thereby reducing corruption.     

Financial development and economic growth in a microfounded small open economy model

The global financial crisis since 2008 revived the debate on whether or not and to what extent financial development contributes to economic growth. This paper reviews different theoretical schools of thought and empirical findings on this nexus, building on which we aim to develop a unified, microfounded model in a small open economy setting to accommodate various theoretical possibilities and empirical observations. The model is then calibrated to match some well-documented stylized facts. Numerical simulations show that, in the long run, the welfare-maximizing level of financial develop is lower than the growth-maximizing level. In the short run, the price channel (through world interest rate) dominates the quantity-channel (through financial productivity), suggesting a vital role of international cooperation in tackling systemic risk of the global financial system.     

A Note on a Framework for Valuation Ratios Based on Fundamentals*

Valuation ratios divide stock price by accounting metrics such as earnings, earnings growth, and book value. This study adapts the general valuation framework in Ohlson and Juettner-Nauroth (2005) and Ohlson (2005) to present a unified approach for developing valuation ratios based on fundamentals, referred to as fundamental valuation ratios. One starts with a valuation model that is driven by an accounting metric a and its abnormal growth, then divides the valuation model by a to get a fundamental valuation ratio. For any valuation ratio, one can find a corresponding fundamental valuation ratio, as long as the valuation model is based on the same metric a as the valuation ratio denominator.     

Farm size and productivity growth in the United States Corn Belt

In recent decades, agricultural production in the U.S. has continued to shift to large-scale operations, raising concerns about the economic viability of small and midsized farms. To understand whether economies of size provided an incentive for the consolidation of production, the study estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) of five size classes of grain-producing farms in the U.S. Heartland (Corn Belt) region. Using quinquennial Agricultural Census data from 1982 to 2012 the study also compares TFP growth rates across farm sizes to gain insight into whether observed productivity differences are likely to persist. The finding of a strong positive relationship between farm size and TFP suggests that consolidation of production has contributed to recent aggregate productivity growth in the crop sector. The study estimates the extent to which sectoral productivity growth can be attributed to structural change versus other factors including technological change. The study also explores some tradeoffs associated with policies that raise the productivity of small versus large farms.     

Effects of pro-growth policies on employment: evidence of regional disparities

The main objective of our research is to study the direct impact of pro-growth economic policies on employment creation globally and regionally, as evidence has countered policy-makers’ expectation that output growth leads automatically to job creation. We innovate by using the ratio of employment to the population above 25 years as dependent variable instead of the customary employment elasticity. We apply generalized methods of moments’ econometrics on dynamic panel data models and find that growth stimulates employment creation on average across 76 countries. The policies promoting private sector credit, investments, openness, services, education spending, tertiary enrollment, and a fixed exchange rate are the ones that create employment. Larger government size undermines job creation, while policies promoting FDI and industrial development fail to stimulate employment. However, we establish that the effect of pro-growth policies on employment varies significantly across regions, with evidence of weaker links between economic policies and employment in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.     

Perceptions of the benefits of the A3 planner in facilitating project-based learning in accounting education

This paper evaluates ways of instilling project management skills into accounting-based learning by the use of an iterative A3 planner to plan, monitor and review assignment progress. The application of an A3 planner to facilitate a project-based learning (PBL) group assignment in undergraduate accounting education has been critically evaluated in terms of both the student and tutor experience. The study uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data assisting exploration of perceptions were collected through 100 undergraduate students. A series of focus group discussions were carried out to investigate students’ engagement and tutors’ teaching experiences regarding the adoption of the A3 planner. The results suggest that the A3 planner promotes active planning and effective management of a PBL group assignment. It makes students’ thought processes more visible thereby facilitating and enhancing the tutoring/mentoring process. Moreover a more interactive and transparent approach by doing assignment via the use of an iterative A3 planner has ensured more feedback points and action based efficiency in the doing approach for learners.     

Sources of Productivity Growth Dynamics: Is Japan Suffering From Baumol's Growth Disease?

This study examines the sources of labor productivity growth dynamics in Japan (1970–2010) and investigates the extent to which Japanese economic performance has been affected by Baumol's growth disease (BGD). We find that BGD silently undermines Japanese economic growth. However, the magnitude is miniscule, and consequently the aggregate labor productivity growth rate has not been decreasing monotonically. We also explore how BGD is arising and why it is small in the Japanese economy. BGD is weak because (1) the positive Baumol growth effect is also working in certain services sectors and (2) BGD is not a durable phenomenon: even if a sector begins to suffer from BGD, it is likely to recover quickly.     

Inflation,real economic growth and unemployment expectations: an empirical analysis based on the ECB survey of professional forecasters

Expectations are at the centre of modern macroeconomic theory and policymakers. In this article, we examine the predictive ability and the consistency properties of macroeconomic expectations using data of the European Central Bank (ECB) Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). In particular, we provide evidence on the properties of forecasts for three key macroeconomic variables: the inflation rate, the growth rate of real gross domestic product and the unemployment rate.     

Machine learning for financial transaction classification across companies using character-level word embeddings of text fields

An important initial step in accounting is mapping financial transfers to the corresponding accounts. We devised machine-learning-based systems that automate this process. They use word embeddings with character-level features to process transaction texts. When considering 473 companies independently, our approach achieved an average top-1 accuracy of 80.50%, outperforming baselines that exclude the transaction texts or rely on a lexical bag-of-words text representation. We extended the approach to generalizes across companies and even across different corporate sectors. After standardization of the account structures and careful feature engineering, a single classifier trained on 44 companies from 28 sectors achieved a test accuracy of more than 80%. When trained on 43 companies and tested on the remaining one, the system achieved an average performance of 64.62%. This rate increased to nearly 70% when considering only the largest sector.