Financial statement consolidation, Aggregation, Informational approach

[In recent years spectral techniques have been used to assess the effects of applying various types of seasonal adjustment procedures to economic time series. Similar analyses using artificially generated time series have also been attempted. The effects, desirable or undesirable, of a particular method of seasonal adjustment can, however, only be assessed properly in the time domain and only in relation to the objectives of such adjustment. Despite the fact that such objectives have not been clearly formulated nor any definitive conception of the nature of seasonality developed, in this paper we do adopt a general approach consistent with what has been written on the subject since the time of Jevons. In terms of a simple three component model of an economic time series having properties similar to those found in many actual time series, we devise several "methods" of seasonal adjustments based on a minimum mean-square-error criterion of optimality. We show that such methods of seasonal adjustment produce seasonally adjusted series bearing the same relationship to the unadjusted series in spectral terms as that found by Nerlove and others in their studies of BLS and Census methods of adjustment. Our conclusion is not that spectral methods are useless, but rather that comparisons in the frequency domain must be interpreted with great care. Further research must emphasize objectives and models. Whether these are formulated in frequency terms or in the time domain is of secondary importance.]

Introduction, 410. — Single-period versus multiperiod decision making, 411. — Simultaneous choice in a multiperiod process, 413. — Alternating choice in a multiperiod process, 416. — The method of backward induction, 417.— General quadratic profit functions, 420. — Reduced quadratic profit functions, 422. — Asymptotic results, 425. — The cost of competition and the benefits of trust, 427. — Conclusion, 428.

Researchers and political analysts concerned with the inter-regional flow of mortgage funds have often pointed to the existence of yield differentials as prima facie evidence of misallocation of capital and national resources. Limited information and myopic lending horizons, with market imperfections reinforced by state laws and institutional segmentation, have been postulated. They are regarded as responsible for costly “frictions” in the export of capitalto the fast-growing, generally low-income, states, particularly those of the South. Both federal and state legislative action, intensified private arbitrage, and better secondary market facilities and instruments are then urged to improve inter-regional financial mediation to reduce or eliminate the yield differentials.

M. Kurz, D. A. Starrett; On the Efficiency of Competitive Programmes in an Infinite-Horizon Model1, The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 37, Issue 4, 1 O

Recent literature, as it has been developing in this journal and others, suggests that a significant change has taken place in the field of finance. The “new finance” has broader and deeper analytic and empirical content. Its relevant characteristics are: (1) a weakening of the traditional distinction between security analysis and corporation finance; (2) an increased emphasis upon financial management as an integral part of the overall management function; (3) greater emphasis upon the relevance of economic theory in the analysis of financial relations; and (4) more attention to the measurement and testing of hypotheses.

[All over the world economists are busy evaluating major road proposals and other transport projects. But this work is largely confined to rural areas because the methods used are inappropriate for evaluating big transport schemes in towns, where traffic congestion is a dominating consideration. This paper discusses congestion as an economic problem of demand and supply, expressed as simple functions of the cost of travel, in time and money, to the road user. Road expansion in congested cities often seems to achieve nothing but more congestion. This paper demonstrates how this arises as a process of market equilibrium, and how one can assess the benefits of the road expansion in this situation. The paper then considers how the evaluation of road schemes would be affected if direct road pricing were introduced into cities as a means of controlling congestion.]

Simultaneity as a LimitA well-known and highly convincing position on the nature of simultaneity in econometric models is that such models are only approximations to the true state of affairs.In fact, causation takes time, and the reactions given by the equations of the model truly occur not instantaneously but with a very small time lag.Unfortunately, however, data do not come to us sufficiently finely divided in time to allow us to observe such fastmoving reactions, so we take simultaneous instantaneously-holding relations as approximations, valid between the observations which nature allows us.Time lags are thus considered negligible provided they are sufficiently small.The consequences of this position for parameter estimation when observations occur at discrete points of time separated by an interval much larger than that in which the true reactions take place have been discussed 2 in the literature.In fact, however, this particular variant of the above view does not seem a very realistic one, We very seldom have observations on the value of a particular variable at precise discrete moments in time, 3 and, if we do, we seldom use the observations in that form.Much more common is the case in which the observations either by necessity or by choice are in the form of averages or sums over a non-zero time interval.Simultaneous This view has been discussed at length by Bentzel and Hansen [2].The basic position on causation has been vigorously maintained by H. Wold in several works, e.g., Wold and Jureen [11]. 2 Strotz [10]; but see also Gorman [6].