During the 19th century, the published accounts of Spanish banks became less frequent during episodes of crisis. Mussolini’s Italian government of 1931 went one step further, suspending publication of accounts by the banks to forestall panic. 14 It is unlikely Goethe and Mussolini would have agreed on the merits of double-entry. While less extreme, there is compelling evidence of British banks having massaged balance sheets from the late 19th century right up until the early 1970s, especially during crisis. Typically, this involved the systematic under-valuation of assets to allow hidden reserves to be carried on the balance sheet. The experience of UK banks in 1952 was typical. As the prices of government securities fell sharply, the basis for valuation by banks was shifted from “at or below market value” to “at or under cost”. This mirrored the Roosevelt and Bush forbearance announcements of 1938 and 1990. The motives for hidden reserves among UK banks were purportedly prudential, as protection against the “excessive dividend expectations” of shareholders and as a cushion against losses in crisis. 15 Although the Companies Act of 1947 prohibited the use of hidden reserves, the banks were exempt from its provisions. But the writing was on the wall. Non-disclosure by banks came under repeated fire during the 1960s. Sensing the inevitable, British banks “voluntarily” decided to pursue full disclosure in 1969, in the interests of shareholder transparency and protection, though there is evidence of hidden reserves persisting right up to the 1980s. 14  James (1992). 15  Billings and Capie (2009).

Given the free production capacity, Albanian businesses found less room to increase their investments in machineries & equipment, and production, while the demand for resident buildings remains weak. At the same time, foreign demand was sluggish in the second quarter of 2012, owing to the problems in euro zone and in our main foreign trade partners. The weak foreign demand, and the problems in electrical energy production, imposed the slow increase of the Albanian exports. Data on economy for the second quarter of 2012 are incomplete. Indirect data signal a weak recovery of the economy in this period. Their analysis supports the estimation for a continuing sluggish aggregate demand, especially of the domestic demand. On the production side, economic sectors are expected to maintain in the second quarter of 2012 the dynamic showed in the first quarter of 2012. Fiscal developments in the second quarter of 2012 were in line with those observed in the first quarter of 2012, characterised by the consolidated fiscal policy and its inclination to maintain budget deficit and public debt targets. This behaviour is reflected in the contraction of budget expenses by 2.5% in the first half of 2012 Furthermore, fiscal revenues increased by 3.7% during this period, continuing to show a slow dynamic of their taxing component. The performance of public expenditure and income in the first half of 2012 is materialised at the significant contraction of budget deficit in annual terms, at 37.7%. This deficit was ALL 16.8 billion in monetary value, and is assessed at 2.6% of GDP.