An Assessment of Cross-National Regulatory Burden Comparisons

The Article compares several rankings systems for national regulatory compliance costs. It finds the ranking systems are limited to differentiating between those countries least burdened by regulation from those most burdened by regulation. It concludes the rankings could be an important tool for deciding which countries would be the most promising for regulatory burden reduction initiatives

An Assessment of Cross-National Regulatory Burden Comparisons

The Article compares several rankings systems for national regulatory compliance costs. It finds the ranking systems are limited to differentiating between those countries least burdened by regulation from those most burdened by regulation. It concludes the rankings could be an important tool for deciding which countries would be the most promising for regulatory burden reduction initiatives

Multiple Evaluation Options & Comparability: Equity Investments in Italy and Spain

The harmonization among the European financial statements based on International Accounting Standards/International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS/IFRS) became an urgent issue when the European Union issued the Regulation (EC) no 1606/2002 which required all listed companies to prepare consolidated accounts in accordance with International Accounting Standards beginning in 2005. The enforcement of the same set of accounting standards does not necessarily lead to comparability if we intend it as a harmonization of the accounting practices. As a matter of fact, European companies could still choose divergent accounting behaviors because IAS/IFRS offer multiple options for the evaluation of the same items, or because the accounting practices of those firms do not comply with the standards. The objective of this paper is to investigate if the level of comparability in consolidated financial reporting practices – as a result of de facto harmonization – has increased after the mandatory introduction of IAS/IFRS. To provide some evidence, the case studies of Italy and Spain have been elected since they are both Code law countries. First of all we test the level of de facto harmonization related to the accounting choices made by 129 Italian and 54 Spanish listed groups, from 2004 to 2009, that is pre and post IAS/IFRS application, in order to verify if the comparability between countries in policy choices, as measured by van der Tas C index, has changed after the application of IAS/IFRS, from the point of view of the users of the financial statements. Starting from the assumption that the de facto harmonization of the accounting practices increases the comparability among firms and among countries, the current study contributes to the literature by exploring the following main research question: Do harmonized accounting standards lead to comparable accounting practices, even when multiple evaluation options are provided? More precisely, comparability has been measured referring to the items of equity investments in subsidiaries, in associates, in joint ventures, and in other equity interests, since the participation item is an excellent setting for this kind of investigation. First results seem to reveal that we are still quite far from the expected and desired comparability. These findings could be helpful for the decisions of institutional regulatory bodies.IFRS, Comparability, Harmonization, Equity investments

Do managers and experts agree? A comparison of alternative sources of trade facilitation data

This paper constructs country-level aggregates of trade facilitation measures from firm-level responses in the Enterprise Surveys and compares them with the Doind Business indicators, the Logistics Performance Index and the Enabling Trade Index. Correlations between the data sources are low even for very specific and simlar questions. We also us the Enterprise Surveys to distinguisj between within-country inter-firm varaiation and between-country variation, finding that the latter acccounts for only a quarter of the total. for the purposes of identifying where reform is needed and estimating the relationship between trade facilitation and exports, these findings rasie the issue of which form of variation is more informative and which data source is more reliable.

Productivity differentials in the U.S. and EU distributive trade sector: statistical myth or reality

In this paper we asses whether productivity growth differentials between the U.S. and Europe in the distributive trade sector are real or mainly a statistical myth. New estimates of retail trade productivity are constructed, taking into account purchase prices of goods sold. We also adjust U.S. wholesale productivity growth for the upward bias due to the use of constant-quality prices of ICT-goods sales. We find that multifactor productivity growth in the U.S. has been higher than in Europe after 1995, but that this lead is smaller than suggested by national accounts based estimates. This finding is robust for various productivity measurement models.

Measuring Up: A Study on Corporate Sustainability Reporting in Canada

In response to the growth in corporate sustainability reporting in Canada, CGA-Canada commissioned a sustainability reporting survey in the fall of 2004. The survey sought to advance understanding of sustainability reporting, advocate for business value and transparency in reporting, and look to enjoin participation by all stakeholders. The results of the survey show the growing trend towards sustainability reporting in Canada. Some 18% of all companies produce a dedicated sustainability report, while approximately 5% spend more than $100,000 annually to report on sustainability issues. Regulatory requirements, stakeholder pressure, and corporate image objectives influence the most the decision to adopt a corporate sustainability reporting practice. In turn, added cost and potential information overload were two of the main reasons why organizations have not adopted a comprehensive sustainability reporting function. Concerns regarding the credibility and the vagueness of reporting practices and guidelines were also expressed.sustainability reporting, corporate social responsibility, reporting practices, sustainable development, socially responsible investment

Compiling a harmonized database from Germany's 1978 to 2003 sample surveys of income and expenditure

We outline a procedure for combining six cross-sections of the German Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure, and discuss potential pitfalls of such a venture. Particularly, we investigate the consequences of a major break in the survey design for inter-temporal comparisons of expenditure categories: a reduction of the surveying period from twelve to three month taking place between the census years 1993 and 1998. We demonstrate that for several commodities a division-by-four of annually-surveyed expenses cannot guarantee inter-temporal comparability of expenditure distributions. We suggest and test the performance of several alternative conversion procedures. Suitability of conversion strategies hinges upon good-specific purchase properties. --German Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure,annual vs. trimestrial data

Representative Wealth Data for Germany from the German SOEP: The Impact of Methodological Decisions around Imputation and the Choice of the Aggregation Unit

The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere consid-erably with the substantive research question. Looking at wealth data from the German SOEP, this paper focuses on the impact of collecting information at the individual rather than house-hold level, and on "imputation and editing" as a means of dealing with measurement error. First, we assess how the choice of unit of aggregation or unit of analysis affects wealth distri-bution and inequality analysis. Obviously, when measured in "per capita household" terms, wealth is less unequally distributed than at the individual level. This is the result of significant redistribution within households, and also provides evidence of a significant persisting gender wealth gap. Secondly, we find multiple imputation to be an effective means of coping with selective non-response. There is a significant impact of imputation on the share of wealth holders (increas-ing on average by 15%) and also on aggregate wealth (plus 30%). However, with respect to inequality, the results are ambiguous. Looking at the major outcome variable for the whole population-net worth-the Gini coefficient decreases, whereas a top-sensitive measure dou-bles. The non-random selectivity built into the missing process and the consideration of this selectivity in the imputation process clearly contribute to this finding. Obviously, the treatment of measurement errors after data collection, especially with respect to the imputation of missing values, affects cross-national comparability and thus may require some cross-national harmonization of the imputation strategies applied to the various national datasets.Wealth, Item non-response, multiple imputation, SOEP

Representative Wealth Data for Germany from the German SOEP: The Impact of Methodological Decisions around Imputation and the Choice of the Aggregation Unit

The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere considerably with the substantive research question. Looking at wealth data from the German SOEP, this paper focuses on the impact of collecting information at the individual rather than household level, and on "imputation and editing" as a means of dealing with measurement error. First, we assess how the choice of unit of aggregation or unit of analysis affects wealth distribution and inequality analysis. Obviously, when measured in "per capita household" terms, wealth is less unequally distributed than at the individual level. This is the result of significant redistribution within households, and also provides evidence of a significant persisting gender wealth gap. Secondly, we find multiple imputation to be an effective means of coping with selective nonresponse. There is a significant impact of imputation on the share of wealth holders (increasing on average by 15%) and also on aggregate wealth (plus 30%). However, with respect to inequality, the results are ambiguous. Looking at the major outcome variable for the whole population-net worth-the Gini coefficient decreases, whereas a top-sensitive measure doubles. The non-random selectivity built into the missing process and the consideration of this selectivity in the imputation process clearly contribute to this finding. Obviously, the treatment of measurement errors after data collection, especially with respect to the imputation of missing values, affects cross-national comparability and thus may require some cross-national harmonization of the imputation strategies applied to the various national datasets.Wealth, Item Non-response, Multiple Imputation, SOEP