Analysts' Forecast Accuracy in Germany: The Effect of Different Accounting Principles and Changes of Accounting Principles

This paper assesses the influence of an adoption of IAS/IFRS or US GAAP on the financial analysts’ forecast accuracy in a homogenous institutional framework. Our findings suggest that the forecast accuracy is higher for estimates based on IFRS or US GAAP data than for forecasts based on German GAAP data.Moreover, in the year of switching from German GAAP to US GAAP the forecast accuracy is lower than in other years. The paper contributes to prior research by providing evidence about the usefulness of international accounting data and about the adoption effects of a change to such accounting principles.

The EU Policy on Institutional Multilingualism: Between Principles and Practicality

This article brings to light several inconsistencies within the narrative of the EU policy on institutional multilingualism. The EU has invoked fundamental EU principles of democracy, equality and transparent government, to publically bolster the need for its institutions to communicate and operate in the languages of its citizens. However, these principles do not allow for the pragmatic and budgetary arguments that the EU uses to justify the in reality limited number of official and de facto working languages of its institutions. The article argues that this disagreement could be resolved if the narrative of the EU's language policy would include the objective that all European citizens master any of the languages that the EU institutions use. In that light, the article recommends that further research is done into the question whether the EU should accept or even encourage the spontaneous development of English as a de facto pan-European lingua franca.

Evaluation of the Role of Access Providers Discussion of Dutch Pirate Bay Case Law and Introducing Principles on Directness, Effectiveness, Costs, Relevance, and Time

Internet service providers (ISPs) play a pivotal role in contemporary society because they provide access to the Internet. The primary task of ISPs – to blindly transfer information across the network – has recently come under pressure, as has their status as neutral third parties. Both the public and the private sector have started to require ISPs to interfere with the content placed and transferred on the Internet as well as access to it for a variety of purposes, including the fight against cybercrime, digital piracy, child pornography, etc. This expanding list necessitates a critical assessment of the role of ISPs. This paper analyses the role of the access provider. Particular attention is paid to Dutch case law, in which access providers were forced to block The Pirate Bay. After analysing the position of ISPs, we will define principles that can guide the decisions of ISPs whether to take action after a request to block access based on directness, effectiveness, costs, relevance and time.