Legitimacy theory may explain the failure of global adoption of IFRS: the case of Europe and the U.S.

We investigate the reasons why “adoption” of one set of globally accepted accounting standards is presently unachievable. By “adoption” we mean that a jurisdiction incorporates IFRS instantly as its national accounting as issued by the IASB. We state that the IASB has used a Legitimacy Theory strategy to gain acceptance of its standards by more than 120 countries across the globe but it has only gained pseudo-“adoption” (not as published by the IASB) of its standards by many countries. We contend that achieving policing and enforcement of its standards globally has proven to be empirically illusive. This legitimacy deficit may explain why convergence between the IASB and FASB is currently idle. We offer a possible solution to bridging the legitimacy gap of global adoption of IFRS. We propose an internationally respected regulator and suggest the IOSCO for this role through its participation in the IFRS Foundation Monitoring Board for policing and enforcement of IFRS for cross-listed firms reporting in compliance with IFRS so that the IASB’s output legitimacy may be achieved globally.     

Model-based clustering with sparse covariance matrices

Statistics and Computing - Finite Gaussian mixture models are widely used for model-based clustering of continuous data. Nevertheless, since the number of model parameters scales quadratically with...     

Modified chain sampling plans for lot inspection by variables and attributes

The purpose of acceptance sampling is to develop decision rules to accept or reject production lots based on sample data. When testing is destructive or expensive, dependent sampling procedures cumulate results from several preceding lots. This chaining of past lot results reduces the required size of the samples. A large part of these procedures only chain past lot results when defects are found in the current sample. However, such selective use of past lot results only achieves a limited reduction of sample sizes. In this article, a modified approach for chaining past lot results is proposed that is less selective in its use of quality history and, as a result, requires a smaller sample size than the one required for commonly used dependent sampling procedures, such as multiple dependent sampling plans and chain sampling plans of Dodge. The proposed plans are applicable for inspection by attributes and inspection by variables. Several properties of their operating characteristic-curves are derived, and search procedures are given to select such modified chain sampling plans by using the two-point method.     

Analysis of the spread of Rhynchophorus ferrugineus in an urban area,using GIS techniques: a study case in Central Italy

Urban Ecosystems - The spread of the red palm weevil is now a very severe problem on a global scale. In this paper, we investigate its spread during the 2007–2013 period in a coastal urban...     

Towards congruence between teachers’ intentions and practice in intercultural education

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between teacher beliefs pertaining to cultural diversity and their actual teaching activities. Using a model-based approach, this study looks at beliefs regarding diversity issues at both the theoretical and empirical levels. At the theoretical level, we attempt to systematise the many meanings of ‘beliefs’ found in the literature. At the empirical level, we examine the link between theory, beliefs, and teaching activities relating to diversity, using integrated analysis tools. To accomplish this, we used a qualitative methodological approach to examine the relationship between theory and practice in education. The sample consisted of 45 in-service primary teachers. The first results showed a gap between what teachers tend to say and what they actually do. We argue that future research needs to focus on the effects of teacher beliefs on teacher practice, with special attention devoted to the reflective process.     

Help-seeking behaviors and attitudes of emerging adults: How college students reporting recent suicidal ideation utilize the internet compared to traditional resources

Abstract

Objective: Suicide is the second leading cause of death among emerging adults, yet little is known regarding their online help-seeking. Participants: The National Research Consortium of Counseling Centers in Higher Education's dataset (N=26,292). Methods: Students across the United States were recruited from 73 four-year institutions to participate during the 2010–2011 school year. Results: Observed the effectiveness of online and traditional help-seeking stratified by recent suicidal ideation related to their most distressful period in the past year. Females and younger students endorsed both types of help-seeking, yet those with recent ideation were less likely to disclose any help-seeking. Among those reporting recent ideation, only females reported that traditional supports were more than moderately helpful. Regardless of whether students endorsed ideation, students who were younger, engaged in risky behaviors and identified as females reported that online resources were more than moderately helpful. Conclusions: Online resources could potentially bridge barriers to traditional help-seeking for those reluctant to seek out care, yet traditional resources were reported to be the most effective among this sample.     

The Ex-Ante Evaluation of Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

This paper describes the methodology and main results from an overall assessment on future achievement of sustainable development goals. The proposed approach consists of a model-based, looking forward composite sustainable development index—FEEM sustainability index—projected to the future. It represents a first experiment to reproduce the future dynamics of sustainable development indicators over time and worldwide and to assess future sustainability under different scenarios. The assessment presented here is relevant under different viewpoints. First, it has a very broad nature in terms of both geographical coverage and meaningfulness: it considers the multi-dimensional structure of sustainable development by combining relevant indicators belonging to economic, social and environmental pillars for the whole world. Second, the modelling framework to compute future trends of indicators relies upon a recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium model. This is an ideal tool to look simultaneously at the development of many indicators, their potential interactions and trade-offs, and more in general to the consequences of economic development and/or policies aiming to increase performance in one or more indicators; it allows measuring the overall sustainability under alternative scenarios, across countries and over time. Finally, regarding the construction of the composite indicator, the application of fuzzy measures and Choquet integral increases substantially the model capability allowing taking into account the interactions that exist among the three main pillars of sustainability and the considered indicators.     

Testing for Serial Independence: Beyond the Portmanteau Approach

Portmanteau tests are typically used to test serial independence even if, by construction, they are generally powerful only in presence of pairwise dependence between lagged variables. In this article, we present a simple statistic defining a new serial independence test, which is able to detect more general forms of dependence. In particular, differently from the Portmanteau tests, the resulting test is powerful also under a dependent process characterized by pairwise independence. A diagram, based on p-values from the proposed test, is introduced to investigate serial dependence. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposal is evaluated in a simulation study and with an application on financial data. Both show that the new test, used in synergy with the existing ones, helps in the identification of the true data-generating process. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

BIG DATA AND BIG CITIES: THE PROMISES AND LIMITATIONS OF IMPROVED MEASURES OF URBAN LIFE

New, “big data” sources allow measurement of city characteristics and outcome variables at higher collection frequencies and more granular geographic scales than ever before. However, big data will not solve large urban social science questions on its own. Big urban data has the most value for the study of cities when it allows measurement of the previously opaque, or when it can be coupled with exogenous shocks to people or place. We describe a number of new urban data sources and illustrate how they can be used to improve the study and function of cities. We first show how Google Street View images can be used to predict income in New York City, suggesting that similar imagery data can be used to map wealth and poverty in previously unmeasured areas of the developing world. We then discuss how survey techniques can be improved to better measure willingness to pay for urban amenities. Finally, we explain how Internet data is being used to improve the quality of city services. (JEL R1, C8, C18)