the market valuation of ias versus us gaap accounting measures using form 20 f reconciliations abstract we investigate the market valuation of earnings and book value amounts prepared under ias and us gaap to provide evidence for the debate between the us sec and nyse on whether foreign firms should be allowed to list in the us using ias we find that the us gaap earnings reconciliation adjustment is value relevant and that us gaap amounts are valued differently for market value and return models but not a price per share model we also find that ias amounts are more highly associated with price per share than us gaap amounts and that us gaap amounts are more highly associated with security returns than ias amounts

rural urban poverty differences in transition countries summary this paper uses new poverty data based on household level surveys to analyze changes in rural poverty and rural urban poverty differences in 23 transition countries of central and eastern europe and the former soviet union the paper presents a series of hypotheses to explain differences across countries and changes over time

patterns of agrarian transition karen macoursuniversity of california berkeley and katholieke universiteit leuvenjohan f m swinneneuropean commission and katholieke universiteit leuveni introductioneconomic reforms have induced important output and productivity changesin the agricultural sectors of transition countries tcs there are however large differences between the countries in terms of the direction and themagnitude of these changes for example agricultural output increased con siderably in the east asian tcs while there was a large output fall in thecentral and east european countries ceecs and the former soviet union fsu during transition g 1

tariff preferences wto negotiations and the ldcs the case of the everything but arms initiative by assessing the impact of the recently adopted everything but arms eba initiative of the eu on the least developed countries ldcs and by showing how further multilateral trade liberalisations erode the eba preferences and impact the ldcs this paper attempts to uncover the ldcs difficult positions in the wto trade negotiations due to its limited product coverage and previous preferences granted by the eu welfare impacts of the eba on the ldcs are shown to be small and the bulk of these gains are associated with the sensitive products that are subject to gradual liberalisations moreover these small gains are likely to disappear if the eu conducts trade policy reforms in fulfilling its wto obligations resulting in an actually worse off situation for the ldcs extending the analysis to a multilateral trade liberalisation scenario reinforces the above results that the ldcs may well lose due to preference erosion and higher world market prices it concludes that other development assistance measures from developed countries should be made available to the ldcs to ease their dependency on trade preferences and to foster their supply capacities the ldcs themselves should attempt to integrate the duty and quota free market access status contained in the eba into a binding wto agreement to secure a stable trading environment but more importantly in order to solve the difficulties at the root these countries should actively engage in reforming their own trade policies

agroindustrialization globalization and international development an overview of issues patterns and determinants this paper offers an overview for a special issue on agroindustrialization globalization and international development it sets out a conceptual framework for understanding the links among these three broad phenomena and then discusses emerging issues and evidence concerning the factors conditioning agroindustrialization in developing countries and the subsequent effects on employment poverty and the natural environment we conclude with a research agenda

market valuation and deregulation of electric utilities abstract this study examines the effect of ongoing deregulation in the electric utility industry on the relation between market value book value and earnings we predict that deregulation decreases increases the relative importance of book value earnings in explaining price we test this prediction by examining changes in the value relevance of book value and earnings during the 1988 1996 time period for a sample of large investor owned electric utilities we find that the regression coefficients and incremental explanatory power related to book value earnings have decreased increased over this time period these results are generally robust in sensitivity analysis

on the european responsibility in the agricultural multilateral trade negotiations modelling the impacts of the common agricultural policy the present round of multilateral trade negotiations is still deadlocked over agricultural trade the european union eu is urged by its trading partners to open its agricultural markets economic evaluations of trade liberalisation scenarios unanimously conclude that a substantial opening of agricultural markets is required for a successful welfare improving doha round in this paper we perform new evaluations to identify precisely the contributions of the european farm policy and to examine the robustness of these evaluations in the representation of this complex policy using the same specifications as in major previous studies our first simulations show that the eu has a major responsibility in delivering significant gains to the developing countries on the other hand when we conduct the same experiments with a more relevant calibration and modelling of the european farm policy instruments the gains that these developing countries may reap from the eu liberalisation are considerably reduced accordingly the current charge against the eu is simply inopportune

shareholder value efficiency in european banking abstract this paper advances the studies of hughes j p lang w w mester l j moon c g pagano m s 2003 do bankers sacrifice value to build empires managerial incentives industry consolidation and financial performance journal of banking and finance 27 417 447 by developing a new measure of bank performance which we refer to as shareholder value efficiency a bank producing the maximum possible economic value added eva given particular inputs and outputs is defined as shareholder value efficient this new efficiency measure is estimated using the stochastic frontier method focussing on the french german italian and uk banking systems over the period 1997 2002 and includes both listed and non listed banks we find that european banks are on average 36 shareholder value inefficient shareholder value efficiency is found to be the most important factor explaining value creation in european banking whereas cost and profit efficiency only have a marginal influence

agricultural tariffs or subsidies which are more important for developing economies this article assesses the impact of the world price depressing effect of agricultural subsidies and border protection in organization for economic co operation and development oecd countries on developing economies exports imports and welfare developing economy exporters are likely to benefit from reductions in such subsidies and trade barriers whereas net importers may lose as world prices rise a simple partial equilibrium model of global trade in commodities that benefit from domestic support or export subsidies is developed to estimate the relevant elasticities simulation results suggest that a 50 percent reduction in border protection will have a much larger positive impact on developing economies exports and welfare than a 50 percent reduction in agricultural subsidies although there is significant heterogeneity across developing economies the results suggest that efforts in the doha round of world trade organization wto negotiations should be directed at substantially reducing border protection

the degree of decoupling of area payments for arable crops in the european union in 1992 the common agricultural policy cap of the european union eu significantly changed direction in the arable crop sector with the so called macsharry reform this reform which reduced cereal intervention prices eliminated output payments for oilseeds and introduced per hectare compensatory payments and a compulsory set aside requirement attached to these payments implied a significant change in the policy incentives to produce in 1999 intervention prices were cut further bringing them closer to world market levels as well as aligning payments of cereals and oilseeds the most recent reform in

transition and enterprise restructuring the development of individual farming in romania economic reforms have induced enterprise restructuring in transition countries in agriculture the most dramatic form of restructuring is the break up of state and collective farms into individual farms the development of individual farming varies strongly between countries regions and households this paper uses household level data from a 1996 survey in romania to analyze which household and regional characteristics determine the shift to individual farming individual farming is influenced by several household characteristics such as the human capital education age farming experience physical capital endowments ownership of land buildings machinery livestock and access to other finance sources off farm wages pensions furthermore environmental factors such as infrastructure local access to inputs and the pre reform importance of individual farming in the region all affect the development of individual farming

farm strategy self selection and productivity can small farming groups offer production benefits to farmers in post socialist romania abstract this paper addresses two questions why are romanian farmers continuing to place land in cooperative forms of farming when theory suggests that private farming is more productive and are there efficiency gains to be had from cooperative farming endeavors results from an econometric selection model suggest that smaller endogenously developed farming cooperatives such as family societies provide benefits over private farming strategies under certain conditions this paper questions the wholesale rejection of cooperation around production and challenges policy to move away from the typically dichotomized presentation of agrarian structure as being a trade off between private small scale farming and large scale collective farming

the reliability of investment property fair value estimates abstract we investigate the reliability of mandatory annual fair value estimates for uk investment property we find that appraisal estimates understate actual selling prices and are considerably less biased and more accurate measures of selling price than respective historical costs investigations of managerial discretion over fair value reporting reveal that managers select among permissible accounting methods to report higher earnings time asset sales to smooth reported earnings changes smooth reported net asset changes and boost fair values prior to raising new debt finally we find that the reliability of appraisal estimates increases when monitored by external appraisers and big 6 auditors

accounting for changing prices the value relevance of historical cost price level and replacement cost accounting in mexico this paper investigates the value relevance of historical cost price level and replacement cost accounting using a sample of mexican firms from 1989 to 1995 it contributes to prior research by distinguishing between two distinct aspects of changing prices 1 the change in the general price level and 2 the change in the value of specific non monetary assets i select mexico to examine because it is unique in requiring and disclosing separately price level and replacement cost adjustments a sample of mexican firms also addresses a key reason cited for mixed results in previous assessments of the usefulness of price level and replacement cost accounting using united states data the effects of inflation are too weak to detect high rates of inflation in mexico ranging between 7 and 52 during the sample period mitigate that potential problem results indicate that replacement cost adjustments are relatively and incrementally relevant beyond historical cost and price level measures while price level adjustments are incrementally value relevant beyond historical measures

production organization and efficiency during transition an empirical analysis of east german agriculture enterprise restructuring is expected to improve efficiency in transition economies with data from former east germany we compare the efficiency of family farms and partnerships with large scale successor organizations of the collective and state farms lsos using parametric and nonparametric techniques we show that lsos display lower technical efficiency than do family farms and partnerships but that this difference is small and declining during transition mainly as a result of structural changes in agriculture family farms are not as scale efficient as partnerships and lsos and partnerships are superior to all other organizational forms

contract farming smallholders and rural development in latin america the organization of agroprocessing firms and the scale of outgrower production abstract this paper demonstrates how contract farming functions as an economic institution and explores the causes of the observed variation in the scale of outgrower production in latin america we outline how market imperfections and transaction costs influence the decision of agroprocessing firms to contract out vertically integrate or use spot markets to obtain raw product the paper demonstrates how market conditions are likely to be associated with particular outgrower characteristics under contract farming an analysis of the mexican frozen vegetable industry illustrates determinants of successful and unsuccessful small scale contracting and suggests alternative policies to promote contract farming with smallholders

discussion of revalued financial tangible and intangible assets association with share prices and non market based value estimates barth and clinch 1998 henceforth bc like easton eddey and harris 1993 henceforth eeh examine the relation between asset revaluation data in the financial statements of australian firms and various value metrics a principal difference between the two studies is the choice of value metrics and the formulation of the regression models relating the revaluation data and these metrics the value metrics used by bc are price per share and a measure of intrinsic value per share most of this discussion will focus on the possible effects of scale in regressions that have price or value per share as the dependent variable my main point is that statistical associations between price balance sheet data and income statement data in these regressions may be a spurious effect of scale other issues raised at the conference included the expected magnitudes of the coefficient estimates from the regression analyses management motives for asset revaluations econometric issues associated with pooling a time series and cross section of data and reasons for use of independent valuations versus valuations by company directors since these issues were addressed in eeh and in the discussion of eeh by bernard 1993 i pay less attention to them in this discussion

from plantations to smallholder production the role of policy in the reorganization of the sri lankan tea sector summary the sri lankan tea sector has changed from one dominated by vertically integrated plantations to one where independent processors of black tea purchase their input green leaf tea from small independent growers this paper provides a unifying conceptual framework to characterize three major factors affecting the changes in vertical coordination arrangements transaction production and management costs regulation and government policy have altered these determinants of organizational change transaction costs have been reduced by state intervention into the price for green leaf which subsequently lowered the risk of processors re negotiating prices downward production costs which continue to be dominated by labor expenses due to the lack of technological developments for harvesting have increased more for plantations than independent producers due to union pressures

who bears the cost of agricultural support in oecd countries this paper provides quantitative estimates of the impact of removing agricultural support in both oecd and developing countries in partial and general equilibrium frameworks the results show that agricultural support in oecd countries is highly distortionary and tariffs have a larger distortionary impact than subsidies removal of agricultural support would likely raise the international prices of food resulting in an increase in the cost of food for many net food importing countries although the size of the increase is generally small the results also show that most of the benefits from removing agricultural support accrue to the countries that liberalise

electric utility stranded costs valuation and disclosure issues we analyze the stock market s valuation of electric utility stranded costs i e costs that might become unrecoverable under deregulation and investigate whether stranded costs that have arisen as a result of voluntary firm business decisions are valued differently from those that are more directly linked to regulatory mandates further we study whether investor valuations differ across jurisdictions finally we examine the relation between investor valuation of stranded costs and the decision by utilities to make stranded cost related disclosures in their financial statements voluntarily we find that investors anticipate that on average approximately 10 of total stranded costs will be borne by utility shareholders stranded costs arising from voluntary operating or investing decisions made by utilities are valued more negatively than those associated with mandatory power purchase contracts consistent with investors assigning a higher recovery probability to the latter investor valuations of stranded costs associated with utility generating investments do not differ systematically across jurisdictions we find that stranded costs are valued less negatively for voluntary disclosers not just in the year of disclosure but also in the preceding two years implying that it is not disclosure per se that favorably influences valuation voluntary disclosers operate in jurisdictions that have more clearly established stranded cost recovery mechanisms suggesting that both stranded cost disclosure and valuation are prompted by reduction in uncertainty about recoverability

on cross sectional analysis in accounting research abstract this paper examines cross sectional analysis procedures common to many market based accounting research papers both the economic and econometric properties of levels and returns studies are discussed topics covered include the relations between the accounting studies and cash flow valuation models the role of expectations of accounting variables deflators spurious inference risk adjustment and its relation to growth size and leverage residual dependence dependence among explanatory variables and the effect of scale differences across firms major conclusions are that market value is the correct deflator in returns studies and that levels and returns studies are economically but not econometrically equivalent

governance and trade in fresh vegetables the impact of uk supermarkets on the african horticulture industry production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub saharan africa over the last decade this trade brings producers and exporters based in africa together with importers and retailers in europe large retailers in europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from africa the requirements they specify for cost quality delivery product variety innovation food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out the control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by uk supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types and for the long term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied kenya and zimbabwe

the relevance of the value relevance literature for financial accounting standard setting another view this paper explains that value relevance research assesses how well accounting amounts reflect information used by equity investors and provides insights into questions of interest to standard setters a primary focus of financial statements is equity investment other uses of financial statement information such as contracting do not diminish the importance of value relevance research value relevance questions can be addressed using extant valuation models value relevance studies address econometric issues that otherwise could limit inferences and can accommodate and be used to study the implications of accounting conservatism r 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classification m41 m44 g12

the nature of the farm abstract using a model based on a trade off between moral hazard incentives and gains from specialization this paper explains why farming has generally not converted from small family based firms into large factory style corporate firms nature is both seasonal and random and the interplay of these qualities generates moral hazard limits the gains from specialization and causes timing problems between stages of production by identifying conditions in which these forces vary we derive testable predictions about the choice of organization and the extent of farm integration to test these predictions we study the historical development of several agricultural industries and analyze data from a sample of over 1 000 farms in british columbia and louisiana in general seasonality and randomness so limit the benefits of specialization that family farms are optimal but when farmers are successful in mitigating the effects of seasonality and random shocks to output farm organizations gravitate toward fa

time series coefficient variation in value relevance regressions a discussion of core guay and van buskirk and new evidence abstract many claim that gaap financial information has become largely irrelevant to explaining valuations core et al compare financial information s value relevance for the new economy stocks with other stocks we supplement their analysis with new evidence on the economic determinants of the time series variation in the coefficients mapping financial information into prices we document significant variation in the coefficients related to proxies for changing market growth expectations and discount rates and additional variation consistent with time varying correlated omitted variables such findings make it difficult to draw unambiguous inferences about the relevance and reliability of financial information from value relevance regressions

internet downturn finding valuation factors in spring 2000 abstract during spring 2000 the internet stock index declined 45 using a sample of internet firms this paper investigates whether this decline was associated with new disclosures such as earnings analyst forecast revisions and web traffic measures or to a reassessment by investors of pre existing information we find only modest evidence that the decline was associated with new disclosures however returns and post decline stock prices are significantly explained by 1999 annual report data when earnings are decomposed into gross profit and various expenses traditional financial information contributes significantly more in explaining the cross sectional returns and price levels than non financial information

the economics of agricultural decollectivization in east central europe and the former soviet union 1989 include both the privatization of agricultural production assets and the restructuring of state and collective farms farm restructuring and more specifically the breakup of large scale agricultural production units into individually operated farms a process we define as decollectivization differ considerably for the various ece and fsu countries differences in decollectivization can be observed across countries between regions within a country and over time we argue that these differences are not random this article identifies the factors that affect the decollectivization process and shows how they are consistent with empirically observed differences in agricultural decollectivization in ece and fsu countries the decollectivization process is a consequence of the decision of collective farm members to leave the collective production framework and start up individual farms factors affecting this decision are the expected productivity and profitability of individual farming relative to collective farming and the costs for individuals to leave the collective farm and start up an individual farm these costs are affected by land reform privatization and decollectivization regulations the relative productivity of individual versus collective farming depends on the distribution of collective farmers productivity the prereform average collective farm productivity and the advantages and disadvantages of individual farming compared to collective farming the literature on decollectivization identifies both advantages and disadvantages in collective production some of which would not extend beyond the transition period disadvantages include high transaction costs associated with the monitoring of labor and inefficiencies due to the right of

success and failure of reform insights from the transition of agriculture this paper analyzes the linkages between the reform strategies in transition countries and economic performance the authors focus on agriculture because of the sharpness of the policy changes fundamental differences among countries and relative simplicity of agricultural relationships the authors document post reform performance in the transition countries of asia and europe the authors show how a pricing reform and subsidy reductions b land rights reform and policies that affect farm restructuring and c the presence institutions that facilitate exchange either markets or market substitutes affect output and productivity the paper ends with general lessons on reforms and transition

reforms globalization and endogenous agricultural structures in this paper i draw lessons from two quasi natural experiments the transition process in former communist countries and the rapid globalization of food chains on the optimality of farms and agricultural structures more generally i argue that a the farm structures that have emerged from the transition process are much more diverse than expected ex ante b this diversity is to an important extent determined by economic mechanisms which are influenced by initial conditions eg technology and reform policies c non traditional farm structures have played an important role during transition since they were optimal to address the specific institutional and structural constraints imposed by the transition process d there is more diversity than often argued in the farms that are integrated in global food chains e endogenous institutional contracting innovations in food chains may lock existing farm structures in a long run institutional framework and f indicators based on farm structures are not a good measure of welfare effects of the globalization of food chains

a development friendly prioritisation of doha round proposals agriculture looms large on the wto s agenda it was the first substantive item listed in the work programme of the ministerial declaration launching the doha round and it was arguably at the centre of the failure at cancun developing countries made it clear both before and during the cancun meeting that progress on agriculture was their primary objective negotiations in other areas have received less attention and progressed more slowly this paper considers that prioritisation and suggests that the interests of developing countries in the current round of trade negotiations are much broader than is suggested by the narrow range of agricultural issues that have dominated negotiations a true development round would require a significant reprioritisation of many areas of the wto s current agenda

institutional reform and labor reallocation during transition theory evidence from polish agriculture abstract reallocation of agricultural labor during transition differs widely between regions and countries our analysis shows that agricultural labor reallocation in poland is determined by a the dramatic adjustment of prices and production costs caused by price liberalization and subsidy cuts b regional differences in farm organization and the impact of institutional reforms on these organizations c structural problems constraining intersectoral mobility the latter limit the benefits from the institutional reforms long term efficiency gains and sustainable rural development are conditional upon reducing such structural constraints and improving the functioning of the labor market

land rental markets in transition theory and evidence from hungary summary this paper analyzes the determinants of household farms participation in land rental markets in transition countries we derive several hypotheses on the impact of households human capital land endowment land quality and prices transaction costs rural credit and labor market constraints our empirical analysis uses data from a representative survey of more than 1 400 hungarian household farms and hungarian official statistics land rental markets reallocate land to households with better farm management capacities households combine buying and renting of land to extend their farms land ownership is fragmented and land consolidation occurs through renting the domination of corporate farms in some regions restricts households access to land

the relation between farm size and farm productivity the role of family labor supervision and credit constraints abstract the paper shows that if the performance of hired farmhands is affected by supervision from family members and if the availability of credit is dependent on the amount of land owned then a systematic positive or negative relationship between per acre yields and farm size will prevail a model with no supervision effects on labor productivity would predict that yields are unaffected by farm size the paper also investigates the relation between land utilization and owned holding size when land rental possibilities are limited results are shown to be compatible with various observed patterns in ldcs