"This is our land": ethnic violence and internal displacement in north-east India

"This report focuses on the situation of people internally displaced by three situations of generalised violence, which between them caused the displacement of over 800,000 people within the region: violence and displacement in Assam and Meghalaya states in December 2010 and January 2011; violence and displacement in Western Assam during the 1990s and 2000s; and violence and displacement from Mizoram state to Tripura state in 1997 and 2009.

Calibration and Internal no-Regret with Partial Monitoring

Calibrated strategies can be obtained by performing strategies that have no internal regret in some auxiliary game. Such strategies can be constructed explicitly with the use of Blackwell's approachability theorem, in an other auxiliary game. We establish the converse: a strategy that approaches a convex $B$-set can be derived from the construction of a calibrated strategy. We develop these tools in the framework of a game with partial monitoring, where players do not observe the actions of their opponents but receive random signals, to define a notion of internal regret and construct strategies that have no such regret

Buried in Paperwork: Excessive Reporting in Organizations

This paper offers an explanation why a principal may demand too much paperwork from a subordinate: Due to limited liability and moral hazard a principal is unable to appropriate all rents. Internal paperwork allows a more accurate monitoring of the agent and enables the principal to appropriate a larger part of the agent's rent. In her decision the principal disregards the agent's cost increase of more internal paperwork. Consequently, the requested amount of internal paperwork may be too high from both the agent's personal point of view and the organization as a whole

No Internal Regret via Neighborhood Watch

We present an algorithm which attains O(\sqrt{T}) internal (and thus external) regret for finite games with partial monitoring under the local observability condition. Recently, this condition has been shown by (Bartok, Pal, and Szepesvari, 2011) to imply the O(\sqrt{T}) rate for partial monitoring games against an i.i.d. opponent, and the authors conjectured that the same holds for non-stochastic adversaries. Our result is in the affirmative, and it completes the characterization of possible rates for finite partial-monitoring games, an open question stated by (Cesa-Bianchi, Lugosi, and Stoltz, 2006). Our regret guarantees also hold for the more general model of partial monitoring with random signals

Internal audit department characteristics/activities and audit fees: Some evidence from Hong Kong firms

This study provides preliminary support for the notion that internal audit function assists in reducing external audit effort and fees. Data on internal audit characteristics and activities are obtained from survey respondents of Hong Kong companies and audit fee model data are acquired from their annual reports. The results of this study suggest that the external auditor of firms in Hong Kong rely on the internal audit function and subsequently charge a lower fee. Lower external audit fees are associated with a larger internal audit department and certain activities carried out by the internal audit. Specifically, lower external audit fees are associated with more internal audit effort spent on activities relating to financial statements, systems development and maintenance, operating efficiency and effectiveness, fraud investigations and unlimited access to internal auditors’ working papers. The results of this study suggest that the contribution of the internal audit may substitute for some substantive external auditing processes and lower monitoring costs

ENHANCING ASSETS' PROTECTION THROUGH AN ADEQUATE MONITORING OF INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEM BY INTERNAL AUDIT

The assets are established into a company as very important and strategic resources that are contributing at the creation of the needed premises to conduct the daily-basis activity and also to reach present and future planned objectives. Recent studies like COSO's Fraudulent Financial Reporting 1998-2007 have highlighted an increasing fraudulent activity against assets therefore the efforts of fighting against fraud must be supplemented in order to preserve the existence and value of those resources. Internal controls are processes implemented in order to give a reasonable assurance that the company will not become a fraud victim. Even so, a lot of internal controls are paying a heavy tribute to their lack of efficiency and update. Thus, for a correct functioning, internal controls must be monitored and assessed permanently in order to preserve their strength and ability to fulfill their mission. This approach will deliver more added value because rather than being corrected after they have already occurred, the frauds related with the assets will be prevented, detected and reported at a timely moment, thereby the incidence and value of those criminal activities will decrease significantly. Furthermore, because not only the process of monitoring is important but even the entity conducting this activity we believe that internal audit is the most appropriate to undertake this responsibility. Thus, through this material we opened a discussion about how important permanent monitored and updated internal controls are in order to assure a proper assets protection and why internal audit, rather than the management, should be the most eligible to undertake this responsibility. Also we provided some suggestions regarding the main activities that must be taken into consideration by an internal audit professional when is being involved in a monitoring process of internal control system. We do believe that this paper will be the starting point for new discussions about the future activities and resources that must be invested in order to assure that internal audit's independence, objectiveness and professionalism will deliver a proper degree of security against frauds.internal audit, monitoring, internal control, assets, fraud

International framework for liquidity risk measurement, standards and monitoring: corporate governance and internal controls

This paper is structured in accordance with identified components which are considered to be essential to the successful implementation of the (two fold) topics of discussion of this paper, namely, monitoring and liquidity risk measurements. The importance of successfully communicating results obtained from monitoring and measuring such risks, and the role of corporate governance in ensuring such effective communication, constitutes a recurring theme throughout this paper. The identified components are as follows: i) Corporate governance (ii) Internal controls (iii) Disclosure (iv) Management of risk (v) Substance over form (vi) Transparency As well as highlighting the interdependence of these components, the paper also aims to accentuate the importance of individual components. Whilst no hierarchy of importance is assigned to these components, corporate governance and internal controls are two components which are analysed in greater depth (than other components). Furthermore, corporate governance could be accorded a status of greater importance than internal controls having regard to the fact that whilst internal controls relate to a very vital control aspect of an organisation, corporate governance relates to all processes – be it decision making, control, production, performance, within a company/bank. The paper will also attempt to demonstrate that it is possible to implement a system of regulation which combines increased formalised procedures and/or detailed rules - whilst giving due consideration to the substance of transactions.corporate governance; internal controls; monitoring; liquidity; regulation