Pankkien tuloksenjärjestelymahdollisuudet siirryttäessä IFRS-normistoon

Tutkielman ensisijaisena tavoitteena oli määrittää pankkien tuloksenjärjestelymahdollisuuksien muutoksia siirryttäessä kansallisesta FAS GAAP -tilinpäätösnormistosta IFRS-normistoon. Tuloksenjärjestelyn ilmiötä käsiteltiin esittelemällä useita koti- ja ulkomaisia tuloksenjärjestelytutkimuksia. Pankeilla on toimialalleen erityisiä kannustimia tuloksenjärjestelyyn. Pankkitoimialalla tuloksenjärjestely on perinteisesti esiintynyt tuloksentasaamisena tilikausien välillä. Tutkimuksessa saatiin selkeä kuva tuloksenjärjestelymahdollisuuksien muutoksesta. IFRS-normiston sisältämä johdon harkintavalta ilmenee tilinpäätöksen laadintaperiaatteiden valinnaisuutena ja standardien laskelmien sisältäminä johdon arvioina ja oletuksina. Harkintavaltaa käyttämällä johto voi vaikuttaa tilinpäätöksen taseeseen ja tulokseen. IFRS-normistossa tilinpäätöksen laadintaperiaatteisiin liittyvä johdon harkintavalta on vähentynyt verrattuna kansalliseen FAS GAAP-tilinpäätöskäytäntöön, mutta IFRS jättää johdolle edelleen harkintavaltaa muutamien kirjaus- ja raportointikäytäntöjen suhteen. Perinteisten tuloksenjärjestelykeinojen rinnalle IFRS:ssä nousevat useiden standardien laskelmien sisältämät johdon arviot ja oletukset tulevaisuuden muuttujista. Omaisuuserien käypään arvoon arvostamisen myötä tilikauden tuloksista saattaa tulla aikaisempaa volatiilimpia. Käypiin arvoihin arvostamisen seurauksena pankit saattavat siirtyä käyttämään sijoitustensa ostoja ja myyntejä tuloksentasauskeinona. FAS GAAP:ssa pankit ovat käyttäneet tuloksentasaamiseen tiettyjä suoriteperusteisia eriä, esimerkiksi luottotappiovarauksia. IFRS tiukentaa varausten tekemisen periaatteita, mutta tuo tilalle lainakannan arvonalentumistestaukseen sisältyvät johdon arviot.

Sticky income inequality in the Spanish transition (1973-1990)

This paper investigates the evolution of income inequality in Spain during its transition to democracy, suggesting a method for the correction of under-reporting of earnings and profits in the Household Budget Surveys’ data. The contribution is twofold: the methodological proposal, based on income expenditure discrepancy and scaling-up to National Accounts, improves on previous work, and can be convenient for similar historical sources in other countries. Secondly, its application results in an alternative history of the distribution of income in this case, changing the levels and also the observed trend. Previous literature asserted a substantial equalization, related to the democratization process, while after the adjustment inequality in disposable income is shown to have been quite persistent.

Models in country scale carbon accounting of forest soils

Selective papers of the workshop on "Development of models and forest soil surveys for monitoring of soil carbon", Koli, Finland, April 5-9 2006.

Study on Microcredit in Kerala with Special Reference to Employment and Income Generation through Microenterprises and Livelihood Projects

This study aimed to study the evolution and substance of microfinance as a major tool for combating poverty at the global and national level. The development of micro finance in Kerala is briefly discussed. It also indicates the importance and role of microcredit in bringing the poor up in the society through entrepreneurial initiatives. The current trends in the field are also discussed, leading to the need of the present research.

Labor's shares - aggregate and industry: accounting for both in a model of unbalanced growth with induced innovation

The relative stability of aggregate labor's share constitutes one of the great macroeconomic ratios. However, relative stability at the aggregate level masks the unbalanced nature of industry labor's shares – the Kuznets stylized facts underlie those of Kaldor. We present a two-sector – one labor-only and the other using both capital and labor – model of unbalanced economic development with induced innovation that can rationalize these phenomena as well as several other empirical regularities of actual economies. Specifically, the model features (i) one sector ("goods" production) becoming increasingly capital-intensive over time; (ii) an increasing relative price and share in total output of the labor-only sector ("services"); and (iii) diverging sectoral labor's shares despite (iii) an aggregate labor's share that converges from above to a value between 0 and unity. Furthermore, the model (iv) supports either a neoclassical steadystate or long-run endogenous growth, giving it the potential to account for a wide range of real world development experiences.

Publicness of goods and violent conflict : evidence from Colombia

How the degree of publicness of goods affect violent conflict? Based on the theoretical model in Esteban and Ray (2001) we find that the effect of the degree of publicness depends on the group size. When the group is small (large), the degree of publicness increases (decreases) the likelihood of conflict. This opens an empirical question that we tackle using microdata from the Colombian conflict at the municipality level. We use three goods with different publicness degree to identify the sign of the effect of publicness on conflict. These goods are coca crops (private good), road density (public good subject to congestion) and average education quality (a purer public good). After dealing with endogeneity issues using an IV approach, we find that the degree of publicness reduces the likelihood of both paramilitary and guerrilla attacks. Moreover, coca production exacerbates conflict and the provision of both public goods mitigates conflict. These results are robust to size, geographical, and welfare controls. Policies that improve public goods provision will help to fight the onset of conflict.

Salud y crecimiento económico: un modelo de generaciones traslapadas, expectativa de vida endógena y capital humano

Este trabajo desarrolla un modelo de generaciones traslapadas con expectativa de vida endógena y capital humano. Recoge parte de la evidencia empírica acerca de la transición demográfica explicada por Notestein en 1945, donde variaciones en la longevidad de los individuos afectan positivamente el crecimiento económico de un país. El modelo establece que la falta de incentivos para invertir en salud estanca a una economía en una trampa de pobreza y muestra que incrementos en la productividad en el sector de producción de capital humano, al igual que cambios tecnológicos sesgados al uso intensivo del mismo, incrementan el producto de estado estacionario y pueden sacar a una economía de una trampa de pobreza.

Cooperative patronage: The National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi in Kasungu District

This paper estimates the determinants of farmers’ decisions to join a rural producer organisation, the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM), in Kasungu District. Data for the study were collected in June and August 2003 using household-level questionnaires and stratified random sampling, where strata were membership status and gender. Probit analysis of 250 farmers shows that off-farm sources of income, distance of the farmer’s household from Kasungu District centre, age of the farmer, tobacco farming, education, household level land holding and gender determined the decision to join NASFAM. These results suggest that farmers should be informed of the potential benefits of participating in rural development efforts, and that rural communication and information infrastructure should be improved so as to reduce the costs of information access and transactions in general, if participation in organisations such as NASFAM is to be enhanced.

Mixed use urban regeneration at Brindleyplace, Birmingham and Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth: an assessment of the impact on local and national economies

This independent research was commissioned by the British Property Federation. The report examines the local and national economic impact of two major, mixed use schemes in terms of tax revenue, household income, business rates and council tax and jobs creation. A regeneration balance sheet for each scheme is presented in the context of government policy and other related research. The report provides a comprehensive review of government policy and the role of retail and other land uses in regeneration. Highlighting the importance of national and local multiplier effects with detailed statistics drawn from a variety of sources, this fully illustrated colour research report builds up a detailed picture of economic impact of the mixed use regeneration schemes in the local economies of Birmingham and Portsmouth. The report will be of interest to property people, planners and all involved in regeneration and local economies.

Let's talk about sex(ism): cross-national perspectives on women partners’ narratives on equality and sexism at work in Germany and the UK

While the accounting academy has contributed in important ways to furthering our understanding of the relative absence of women in top positions in Professional Service Firms, in-depth empirical research that focuses specifically on sexism is rare, especially so from a cross-national perspective. Drawing on sixty interviews with women partners in public accountancy firms in Germany and the United Kingdom, this article examines how women partners talk about sexism and equal opportunities in the accountancy profession and considers how these narratives are patterned cross-nationally. Employing cultural theory, this study explores how elite women discursively relate to sexism and equal opportunities through their career histories and demonstrates the complex interrelation between the context in which these narratives are produced and the past and present positions of the respondents. Interestingly, it was the German respondents who drew on problematic notions of ‘choice’ and responsibility, where it was upon women to make a choice between their careers and home lives, while this decision-making process was not expected from men. This was in contrast to the accounts of the UK participants who, although also unveiling tensions in their talk, were more inclined to acknowledge continuing structural constraints.

Coordination, inclusiveness and wage inequality between median and bottom income workers

What explains cross-national variation in wage inequality? Research in comparative political economy stresses the importance of the welfare state and wage coordination in reducing not only disposable income inequality but also gross earnings inequality. However, the cross-national variation in gross earnings inequality between median and low income workers is at odds with this conventional wisdom: the German coordinated market economy is now more unequal in this type of inequality than the UK, a liberal market economy. To solve this puzzle, I argue that non-inclusive coordination benefits median but not bottom income workers and is as a result associated with higher – rather than lower - wage inequality. I find support for this argument using a large N quantitative analysis of wage inequality in a panel of Western European countries. Results are robust to the inclusion of numerous controls, country fixed effects, and also hold with a sample of OECD countries. Taken together these findings force us to reconsider the relationship between coordination and wage inequality at the bottom of the income distribution.

Influência do crédito e do efeito framing nos preços de referência

Muitos trabalhos estrangeiros e alguns trabalhos brasileiros indicam que os consumidores têm um preço de referência em sua mente ao analisar o preço de um bem em particular, sendo este processo interno, externo ou ambos. Verifica-se também que o modo como as situações no momento da compra são apresentados (efeito framing) também influencia o processo decisório. Estes fenômenos têm sido explicados por estudos comportamentais e de constructos psicológicos. Este trabalho tem como objetivo explorar o efeito do crédito (em particular as compras parceladas) e do efeito framing nos preços de referência. O motivador deste estudo foi o grande volume de linhas de crédito que tem sido oferecido no mercado brasileiro. A maior parcela dos respondentes (41%) pertence a classe C que representa maior fatia de renda nacional e correponde a cerca de 103 milhões de pessoas (dados de agosto de 2010) e tende a evoluir para 56% da população (113 milhões até 2014). O método de pesquisa usado foi o experimental com manipulação por instrução. Pode-se confirmar a hipótese de que o preço de referência pode apresentar uma variação onde a sensação de perda é reduzida ao ser transferida para o longo prazo ou simplesmente anulada pela satisfação imediata de posse do bem. Não se pode confirmar hipótese de que o crédito pode influenciar a formação de preços de referência. Contudo, pode-se explorar o tema e fornecer bases para motivar pesquisas futuras a respeito.

Os efeitos macroeconômicos das transferências sociais: uma abordagem de matriz de contabilidade social

Government transfers to individuals and families play a central role in the Brazilian social protection system, accounting for almost 14 per cent of GDP in 2009. While their fiscal and redistributive impacts have been widely studied, the macroeconomic effects of transfers are harder to ascertain. We constructed a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for 2009 and estimated short-term multipliers for seven different government monetary transfers . The SAM is a double-entry square matrix depicting all income flows in the economy. The data were compiled from the 2009 Brazilian National Accounts and the 2008/2009 POF, a household budget survey. Our SAM was disaggregated into 56 sectors, 110 commodities, 200 household groups and seven factors of production (capital plus six types of labor, according to schooling). Finally, we ran a set of regressions to separate household consumption into ‘autonomous’ (or ‘exogenous’) and ‘endogenous’ components. More specifically, we are interested in the effects of an exogenous injection into each of the seven government transfers outlined above. All the other accounts are thus endogenous. The so-called demand ‘leaks’ are income flows from the endogenous to exogenous accounts. Leaks—such as savings, taxes and imports—are crucial to determine the multiplier effect of an exogenous injection, as they allow the system to go back to equilibrium. The model assumes that supply is perfectly elastic to demand shocks. It assumes that the families’ propensity to save and consumption profile are fixed—that is, rising incomes do not provoke changes in behaviour. The multiplier effects of the on GDP corresponds to the growth in GDP resulting from each additional dollar injected into each transfer seven government transfers. If the government increased Bolsa Família expenditures by 1 per cent of GDP, overall economic activity would grow by 1.78 per cent, the highest effect. The Continuous Cash Benefit, comes second. Only three transfers— the private-sector and public servants’ pensions and FGTS withdrawals—had multipliers lower than unity. The multipliers for other relevant macroeconomic aggregates—household and total consumption, disposable income etc. —reveal a similar pattern. Thus, under the stringent assumptions of our model, we cannot reject the hypothesis that government transfers targeting poor households, such as the Bolsa Família, help foster economic expansion. Naturally, it should be stressed that the multipliers relate marginal injections into government transfers to short-term economic performance either real growth, or inflation if there is no idle capacity which is also useful to analyze. In the long term, there is no doubt that what truly matters is the growth of the country’s productive capacity.

Microinsurance: income risk, social security and the demand for private onsurance by low-income families

Insurance provision against uncertainties is present in several dimensions of peoples´s lives, such as the provisions related to, inter alia, unemployment, diseases, accidents, robbery and death. Microinsurance improves the ability of low-income individuals to cope with these risks. Brazil has a fairly developed financial system but still not geared towards the poor, especially in what concerns the insurance industry. The evaluation of the microinsurance effects on well-being, and the demand for different types of microinsurance require an analysis of the dynamics of the individual income process and an assessment of substitutes and complementary institutions that condition their respective financial behavior. The evaluation of the microinsurance effects on well-being, and the demand for different types of microinsurance require an analysis of the dynamics of the individual income process and an assessment of substitutes and complementary institutions that condition their respective financial behavior. The Brazilian government provides a relatively developed social security system considering other countries of similar income level which crowds-out the demand for insurance and savings. On the other hand, this same public infrastructure may help to foster microfinance products supply. The objective of this paper is to analyze the demand for different types of private insurance by the low-income population using microdata from a National Expenditure Survey (POF/IBGE). The final objective is to help to understand the trade-offs faced for the development of an emerging industry of microinsurance in Brazil.