Strategies for Tutors Developing Long-Term Relationships with English as Second Language Students in Writing Centers

This poster is looking at strategies for tutors looking to develop long-term relationships with ESL and ELL students in writing centers. The strategies that are included within this poster are taken from my own experiences and other readings. Furthermore, the poster looks at different writing centers throughout the United States that have programs that encourage these long-term relationships

Efficient Committed Budget for Implementing Target Audit Probability for Many Inspectees

Strategic models of auditor-inspectee interaction have neglected implementation details in multiple-inspectee settings. With multiple inspectees, the target audit probability derived from the standard analysis can be implemented with sampling plans differing in the budgets committed to support them. Overly committed audit budgets tie up unneeded resources that could have been allocated for better uses. This paper studies the minimum committed budget required to implement a target audit probability when (i) the audit sample can be contingent on “red flags” due to signals of inspectees’ private information (e.g., from self-reporting) and (ii) the number of inspectees is large. It proposes an audit rule called bounded simple random sampling (SRS), which is shown to require no more committed budget to support than two other rules naturally generalized from the one-to-one analysis. When the number of inspectees is large enough, bounded SRS is nearly as good as any efficient audit rule, which demands the lowest committed budget necessary to implement the target audit probability. The results offer insights on how audit sampling plans may be formulated to reduce inefficiency and what budget usage ratios should be expected accordingly.audit sampling plan; audit budget; tax audit; tax compliance; tax evasion; inspection game; appropriation and rescission

Quality Cost and Failure Risk in the Choice of Single versus Multiple Sourcing

The advantage of multiple sourcing to protect against supplier failures arising from undependable (or even unsafe) products due to latent defects is examined using a quality-cost model of supply base composition. Prior models have focused on supplier failures arising from unreliable supply, such as late/ insufficient/ no delivery, due to random yields. This model focuses on non-linear external failure costs leading to a desire for risk diversification. I derive a closed-form characterization of the optimal production quota allocation, which determines the optimal supply base with two intuitive properties. If a supplier is selected, any supplier of higher quality must also be selected. Moreover, larger production quotas should be assigned to higher-quality suppliers. These properties hold under a mild condition on the differences among suppliers’ production costs. The condition includes the special case of equal costs but also allows unequal costs without any particular order (e.g, higher-quality suppliers may or may not have higher production costs). I also derive a necessary and sufficient condition for determining the exact size of the optimal supply base, provided the mild condition holds. An alternative necessary and sufficient condition is derived to determine whether single or multiple sourcing is optimal, without requiring any precondition

Fraud Detection and Financial Reporting and Audit Delay

I formulate a model to emphasize the fraud detection role of auditors in the financial market, providing a theoretical framework to examine the likelihood of and market reaction to a financial reporting and audit delay. The model has an auditor considering whether to perform extended audit procedures after observing a red flag generated from regular audit procedures. An audit delay is represented by the event of extending audit procedures and manifested as a financial reporting delay observed by the market. I find that the equilibrium likelihood of a delay decreases when the reliability of regular and extended audit procedures improves and/or when the ex ante probability of fraud reduces. My result on the market reaction to a delay suggests that while a negative average reaction is intuitive and has been documented, the reaction can be positive for an individual firm. I derive a closed-form condition indicating when a positive reaction is possible. Specifically, a delay can be good news to the market when the ex ante probability of fraud, the imprecision of a red flag, and the effectiveness of extended audit procedures for detecting fraud are all high. The result is new in the literature. I also discuss the model's empirical implications with suggestions for regression equation specifications

Failure Risk and Quality Management in the Choice of Single versus Multiple Sourcing

The advantage of multiple sourcing to protect against supplier failures arising from undependable products due to latent defects is examined using a model with non-linear external failure costs. Prior research has focused only on supplier failures arising from unreliable supply, such as late/insufficient/no delivery. I derive a closed-form characterization of the optimal production quota allocation for the LUX (Latent defect-Undependable product-eXternal failure) setting. The allocation determines the optimal supply base, with intuitive properties that hold under a mild condition. The condition includes the special case of equal procurement costs charged by suppliers but also allows unequal costs without any particular order. Necessary and sufficient conditions are also derived to determine (i) the exact size of the optimal supply base, provided the mild condition holds, and (ii) whether single or multiple sourcing is optimal, without requiring any precondition

Can transparency hurt? An experiment on whether disclosure of audit policy details reduces tax compliance

Tax authorities around the world often are reluctant to disclose audit policy details. In particular, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has the practice of releasing broad statistics like the audit rate of each income class but resists pressures demanding details on how different circumstances might result in a higher audit probability to taxpayers. This paper experimentally examines whether disclosing such details can reduce tax compliance. We compare a Flat-rate treatment, where taxpayers are told about the average audit probability, with a Bounded treatment, where taxpayers are fully informed of the contingent audit probability structure. Our findings do not support the potential concern against disclosing details. In an additional Bounded-hi-q treatment where multiple equilibria exist, the compliance level is even higher under full disclosure of the probability structure

Can transparency hurt? An experiment on whether disclosure of audit policy details reduces tax compliance

Tax authorities around the world often are reluctant to disclose audit policy details. In particular, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has the practice of releasing broad statistics like the audit rate of each income class but resists pressures demanding details on how different circumstances might result in a higher audit probability to taxpayers. This paper experimentally examines whether disclosing such details can reduce tax compliance. We compare a Flat-rate treatment, where taxpayers are told about the average audit probability, with a Bounded treatment, where taxpayers are fully informed of the contingent audit probability structure. Our findings do not support the potential concern against disclosing details. In an additional Bounded-hi-q treatment where multiple equilibria exist, the compliance level is even higher under full disclosure of the probability structure

Industry Effects on Firm and Segment Profitability Forecasting: Do Aggregation and Diversity Matter?

Abstract. A recent study shows that industry-specific analysis has no incremental advantage over economy-wide analysis in forecasting firm profitability. This result seems puzzling because some earlier studies have documented the importance of industry effects in explaining firm profitability. We reconcile the apparent inconsistency by showing that industry effects on profitability forecasting exist at the more refined business segment level, but are obscured by aggregated reporting at the firm level. Using segment-level analysis as well as firm-level analysis that also utilizes segment-level information, we provide consistent evidence supporting that industry-specific analysis is more accurate than economy-wide analysis in predicting the profitability of business segments and the profitability of single-segment firms