In response to Australia's decision to adopt international financial reporting standards (IFRSs) from 2005, New Zealand has subsequently decided to follow. New Zealand reporting entities are required to adopt IFRSs from 2007 with the option of early adoption from 2005.As New Zealand is one of...

In contrast to the trend of research investigating why firms decide to release earnings forecasts to pre-empt any expected change in earnings, our study investigates how firms manage their earnings forecast strategy once they have decided to release earnings forecasts. Using a sample of 350...

The editors of the Mirrlees Review asked us to evaluate the UK VAT and the European Union VAT Directive and compare them to the New Zealand VAT model, which is called GST (Goods and Services Tax). At first sight, this brief might seem strange. After all, the VAT is a European invention that has...

This paper expands our understanding of the introduction of new audit arrangements in the public sector by looking at three cases relating to the audit of local government. The first case saw the Audit Office replacing the elected auditors as the sole auditor of municipalities in 1886; the second...

This paper provides empirical evidence for the importance of institutions in determining the outcome of crises on long-term growth. Once unobserved country-specific effects and other sources of endogeneity are accounted for, political institutions affect growth through their interaction with...

We construct a matrix showing the share of the year 2000 population in every country that is descended from people in different source countries in the year 1500. Using this matrix, we analyze how post-1500 migration has influenced the level of GDP per capita and within-country income inequality...

This paper identifies factors associated with takeoff - a sustained period of high growth following a period of stagnation. We examine a panel of 241 stagnation episodes" from 146 countries, 54 % of these episodes are followed by takeoffs. Countries that experience takeoffs average 2.3% annual...

The aim of this study is to test the existence of balance of a payments constraint on the long run economic growth of the Turkish economy. The balance of payments constrained growth (BPCG) model which was developed by Thirlwall (1979) and extended by Thirlwall and Hussain (1982) is tested over...

We use U.S. county-level data to estimate convergence rates for 22 individual states. We find significant heterogeneity. E.g., the California estimate is 19.9 percent and the New York estimate is 3.3 percent. Convergence rates are essentially uncorrelated with income levels.

This paper analyzes the interconnection between elites and its effects on economic growth. For decades, the bureaucratic elite has been joining the business elite after leaving office, and this in growing numbers. This relationship has been termed the revolving door in English, pantouflage in...