Les normes comptables comme institution du capitalisme. Une analyse du passage aux normes IFRS en Europe à partir de 2005

In 2002, the European Union changed direction from its past efforts to harmonise European accounting systems and turned instead to a subcontractor, requiring listed European companies to adopt accounting standards drawn up by a private London-based organisation, the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board), which had until then had no public mandate. This decision was all the more significant because the EU has no institutional means of control over the IASB, although it was the first geographical group to decide to impose these standards on its businesses. IASB standards are rooted in the “anglo-saxon” tradition of standardisation for the financial markets, and the view of the enterprise they promote diverges from the accounting traditions of continental European capitalism. This article shows how the new standards are transforming the concept of enterprise, and examines the span of factors that brought about what is a major institutional change for European capitalism. — Special issue: New patterns of institutions.     

Rainfall interception by Santa Monica's municipal urban forest

Effects of urban forests on rainfall interception and runoff reduction have been conceptualized, but not well quantified. In this study rainfall interception by street and park trees in Santa Monica, California is simulated. A mass and energy balance rainfall interception model is used to simulate rainfall interception processes (e.g., gross precipitation, free throughfall, canopy drip, stemflow, and evaporation). Annual rainfall interception by the 29,299 street and park trees was 193,168 m³ (6.6 m³/tree), or 1.6% of total precipitation. The annual value of avoided stormwater treatment and flood control costs associated with reduced runoff was $110,890 ($3.60/tree). Interception rate varied with tree species and sizes. Rainfall interception ranged from 15.3% (0.8 m³/tree) for a small Jacaranda mimosifolia (3.5 cm diameter at breast height) to 66.5% (20.8 m³/tree) for a mature Tristania conferta (38.1 cm). In a 25-year storm, interception by all street and park trees was 12,139.5 m³ (0.4%), each tree yielding $0.60 (0.4 m³/tree) in avoided flood control costs. Rainfall interception varied seasonally, averaging 14.8% during a 21.7 mm winter storm and 79.5% during a 20.3 mm summer storm for a large, deciduous Platanus acerifolia tree. Effects of differences in temporal precipitation patterns, tree population traits, and pruning practices on interception in Santa Monica, Modesto, and Sacramento, California are described.     

Sources of drug information among adolescent students

A sample of 1023 eighth and tenth grade students in small to medium-sized central Texas school districts was assessed to determine the amount of information they receive from ten sources about six categories of drugs. The amount of information males reported receiving about each drug category was significantly greater than what females reported, and the amount of information that eighth graders reported receiving about each drug category was significantly greater than what tenth graders reported. Television was the primary source of drug information for all categories of drugs except inhalants, for which friends and television were equally important sources. Parents and printed media (magazines or newspapers) were of secondary importance, followed by friends and teachers. Adolescents were less likely to receive drug-related information from experience, siblings, church, doctors, and police. The reliance on the mass media for drug information in smaller school districts is a pattern which has been previously observed in larger urban districts. This consistency suggests that mass media approaches to drug education are likely to be as effective in rural areas and smaller towns as they are among urban adolescents. Implications for television programming are discussed.     

Housing affordability among elderly female heads of household in nonmetropolitan areas

This study investigates the extent and nature of housing affordability for elderly nonmetropolitan female heads of household using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results indicate that over one-third of elderly nonmetropolitan female heads of household experience housing poverty and that those who rent, who have fair to poor health, and who are minorities are particularly vulnerable. Housing affordability, measured by the concept of housing poverty, identifies households struggling to meet basic needs while the conventional 25% of income for housing expenditures ratio identifies a larger population. The findings suggest the need for multifaceted public policies to address the problem of housing poverty. Her research interests include housing affordability, housing and community vitality, and decision making. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University. Sooyoun Park is in the same department as a Project Assistant on a USDA-funded research project entitled “Housing Affordability in Rural Areas,” which is a joint project between Nebraska and Wisconsin. Her research interests focus on housing management behavior in relation to housing expenditure burden. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.     

A theory of policy differentiation in single issue electoral politics

Voter preferences are characterized by a parameter s (say, income) distributed on a set S according to a probability measure F. There is a single issue (say, a tax rate) whose level, b, is to be politically decided. There are two parties, each of which is a perfect agent of some constituency of voters, voters with a given value of s. An equilibrium of the electoral game is a pair of policies, b ₁ and b ₂, proposed by the two parties, such that b _i maximizes the expected utility of the voters whom party i represents, given the policy proposed by the opposition. Under reasonable assumptions, the unique electoral equilibrium consists in both parties proposing the favorite policy of the median voter. What theory can explain why, historically, we observe electoral equilibria where the ‘right’ and ‘left’ parties propose different policies? Uncertainty concerning the distribution of voters is introduced. Let {F(t)} _{t ε T} be a class of probability measures on S; all voters and parties share a common prior that the distribution of t is described by a probability measure H on T. If H has finite support, there is in general no electoral equilibrium. However, if H is continuous, then electoral equilibrium generally exists, and in equilibrium the parties propose different policies. Convergence of equilibrium to median voter politics is proved as uncertainty about the distribution of voter traits becomes small.     

Is the GNP fractionally integrated?

The suitability of autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average (ARFIMA) processes for the modeling of US aggregate output is examined. We consider the two most widely used methods for the estimation of the fractionally differencing parameter and discuss the empirical results obtained by applying these methods to the quarterly post-war real GNP as well as to the quarterly post-war real GNP per capita. Contrary to previous findings, we conclude that evidence for a fractional degree of integration is poor.