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We examine the factors that associate with local government decisions to comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). GAAP non-compliance is surprisingly common among larger local governments, and that trend has important implications for public policy, financial management transparency, and government accountability. To examine the factors that drive GAAP compliance, we develop a conceptual framework based on the politico-economic perspective on accounting policy choice, and then test that model with data from a national survey of local government finance professionals. Our key contribution is that we incorporate accounting professionalism. The findings suggest that for many local governments the decision to adopt GAAP is a response to the pressures of professionalism rather than a rational response to political and economic motives.

This paper analyzes the impact of increased federal regulatory enforcement from the SEC's Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation (MCDC) initiative on municipal debt issuers continuing disclosure practices.

We analyze the changes in continuing disclosure practices by estimating a series of difference-in-differences regressions based on variables representing issuers' changes in regulatory risk after the MCDC. The continuing disclosure data are hand-collected for 827 cities over a seven-year period.

The empirical findings indicate that increased regulatory enforcement has a significant impact on continuing disclosure compliance. We find increased enforcement has no impact on issuers that already have a higher probability of being monitored by federal regulators. We also find that an increase in continuing disclosure compliance does not automatically increase continuing disclosure timeliness.

The MCDC lacks monetary penalties for noncompliant bond issuers and no direct regulatory consequences exist for untimely disclosure. Our findings suggest that regulatory enforcement should be followed by adequate sanctions to emphasize the credibility of the enforcement threat and the SEC should consider requiring bond issuers to commit to the timely disclosure of significant information in offering documents.

This paper extends prior studies by analyzing regulatory risk in the market, and the ability of regulation to reduce disclosure compliance deficiencies in the municipal market. By focusing on the MCDC, this study is able to disentangle the impact of regulatory enforcement from the changes in accounting regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) indicated by Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 34 presentation and pension underfunding in Illinois.

The authors used a fixed effects regression and employed a sample of Illinois municipalities (n=2,565 municipal-year observations) over the period 2009–2014.

The findings show that GAAP is inversely associated with pension underfunding, but only among the subsample of municipalities that are within the healthy pension funding range, i.e., above 80 percent funded. These municipalities may be in a better position to increase pension funding in response to the disciplining effect of broad GAAP conformity.

The paper focuses solely on one state and one multi-employer plan. Future studies should consider assessing the applicability of the results to other states and plan settings.

The results inform the standard-setting process, particularly as the implementation of the new GASB standards is evaluated and as GASB 34 is reexamined.

Despite concerns associated with state and local pension underfunding, academic studies examining its determinants are few. The sample setting is representative of municipal pension plans in the USA (with a comparable average pension funding ratio of 74.2 percent) and provides variability in GAAP conformity (the state encourages, but does not require, financial statement presentation consistent with GASB 34), as well as homogeneity in actuarial assumptions across observations (all sample municipalities participate in a large multi-employer municipal pension plan). The sample period immediately precedes the implementation of GASB Statements Nos 67 and 68, which increase the scope of pension reporting, providing the opportunity to consider the effects of broad GAAP conformity and a baseline for subsequent consideration of the effects of the new standards.

There is sufficient evidence to prove that the improved health status of a nation’s citizens results in economic growth and development via improved functionality and productivity of labor. It is also commonly accepted that healthcare expenditure significantly influences health status through, for instance, improving life expectancy at birth and reducing morbidity, death, and infant mortality rates. Within healthcare, medicines account for a considerable share of health-related expenditure in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that improved access to medicines is likely to contribute not only to the well-being of families and individuals but also to the economic growth and development in all societies. It has been widely advocated that pharmaceutical multinational enterprises (MNEs) can play an important role to address this problem, as they develop and supply a significant proportion of the drugs imported by low- and middle-income countries. This chapter is dedicated to a systematic review of literature in order to identify the strategies implemented by pharmaceutical MNEs to improve access to medicines in the low- and middle-income countries. A total of 76 research articles have been identified, and we have found that the main strategies of pharmaceutical MNEs are related to improving health outcomes through R&D, establishing partnerships for product development, pricing strategies to improve access to medicines, technology transfer, licensing agreements, and nonmarket efforts to improve access to medicines, among other strategies to overcome barriers imposed by intellectual property rights. We have also found that pharmaceutical MNEs’ strategies take place within a complex system and often involve interactions with a wide range of actors, such as international organizations, governments, private not-for-profit sector, universities and research institutes, and generic manufacturers. However, there is still a need for major progress in the field of access to medicines, and pharmaceutical MNEs should be more active in this field in order to avoid potential negative consequences, such as loss of legitimacy and compulsory licensing of their patented medicines.

TWO nickel‐bearing commercial steels were oxidised in the range 1100°–1250°C for up to 8 hr. in air and CO2. The increase in thickness of the scale and the inner layer with embedded metal particles was followed in detail. A distinction is made between filaments which retain continuity with the base metal and discrete particles. The continuous filaments may be of practical importance in holding the scale to the metal in hot rolling, leading to surface defects on hot‐rolled products.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Goldman Sachs seems to have it all. They have the respect of their customers and their competitors on a global scale. They achieve consistently outstanding trading results. Surprisingly in the macho world of banking they offer enlightened human resources practices. Growth is a given. Managing risk is embraced as part of the landscape. Can it last? It would certainly seem so, although admittedly with a few worrying signs to the contrary. Going public in 1999 stripped away some of the cloak of secrecy and invincible mystique. Yet even when a torch is shone into the darkest corners the prognosis still looks reasonably good. So what is their secret?

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

The first part of this paper was published in the April issue. For convenience Figures 1 and 13 have been repeated here from part 1 as frequent reference is made to them

The work described in this paper is part of a current programme that has two objects: (1) to investigate further the reasons for the different scaling behaviour of steel in steam and carbon dioxide, although these gases have similar oxygen potentials; (2) to provide background information for an investigation into the effect of variations in re‐heating furnace atmospheres upon scaling and scale adhesion.

The work described in this paper is part of a current programme that has two objects: (1) to investigate further the reasons for the different scaling behaviour of steel in steam and carbon dioxide, although these gases have similar oxygen potentials; (2) to provide background information for an investigation into the effect of variations in re‐heating furnace atmospheres upon scaling and scale adhesion.