Reviews the book 'Decline and Renewal: Causes and Cures of Decay Among Foreign-Trained Intellectuals and Professionals in the Third World,' by Craufurd D. Goodwin and Michael Nacht.
This paper examines the marginal contribution of scores on the AICPA level I achievement test and aptitude test for predicting the performance of students in upper division courses. Three performance measures were studied: grades in all upper division courses, grades In upper division accounting courses, and a binary variable reflecting whether a student made a C or below on an upper division accounting course. Results for each of these measures indicated that the AICPA scores did not improve significantly the predictive ability of models that included lower division grades. Several limitations of the study are described.
The identification of common stock equivalents is necessary to compute primary earnings per share. However, the APB/FASB rules for classifying convertible securities as common stock equivalents lack a well-defined rationale. This paper describes a periodic market-based statistical test to establish common stock equivalence for convertible bonds. The test is consistent with the APB's stated intent and is based on the theoretical valuation of convertible bonds. It is compared with the classification rules of the APB/FASB for common stock equivalents using a randomly selected sample of convertible bonds. There is little agreement between the convertible bonds classified as common stock equivalents by the APB/ FASB rules and those so classified by the market-based test described herein.
The evaluation of the quality of governmental auditors work is of keen Interest among governmental audit policy-makers. However, as there is little published evidence on which to base such evaluations at this time, this paper discusses the results of an exploratory study on the subject. The study assumes that the extent to which an auditor actually performs the audit procedures prescribed by a given audit program is an important Indicator of the quality of the auditor's work. Accordingly, responses were sought from governmental auditors at all levels of government as to their failure to perform prescribed procedures, even though they affirmed performance through sign-offs on their working papers. To offer anonymity to the respondents and to encourage truthful responses, the survey was based on the randomized response technique. The findings Indicate that a number of false sign-offs have occurred among governmental auditors as a group. Within the governmental group, the study found that false sign-off rates were slightly higher among auditors at the state level than those at the federal level. Also, rates were slightly higher among auditors not working under a civil service system than those who were, and higher among those who were not certified compared to those who were. It also found that independence of the audit function was not helpful in explaining positive false sign-off rates. However, the significance of these differences as a way of describing the false sign-off rates of governmental auditors was not strong.