Strengthening the Role of Financial Disclosure in the Governance of Superannuation Funds. This project will provide evidence about the usefulness of superannuation fund financial reports and whether funds are disclosing unbiased measures of their financial position and performance. This evidence will directly assist regulators in their deliberations in reforming accounting standards and other disclosure regulation governing superannuation fund financial reporting. Such reforms are necessary to e ....Strengthening the Role of Financial Disclosure in the Governance of Superannuation Funds. This project will provide evidence about the usefulness of superannuation fund financial reports and whether funds are disclosing unbiased measures of their financial position and performance. This evidence will directly assist regulators in their deliberations in reforming accounting standards and other disclosure regulation governing superannuation fund financial reporting. Such reforms are necessary to ensure that all Australians in superannuation funds have access to relevant, reliable and comparable financial information to facilitate full accountability of superannuation fund trustees and informed decision making by stakeholders, and in turn, enhance the security of superannuation savings and maximise retirement incomes.Read moreRead less
The reliability of corporate reporting of greenhouse gas estimates: Determinants, consequences, training for accountants and policy Initiatives. Fundamental to the successful re-allocation of resources to address climate change is that greenhouse gas estimates reported by firms are reliable. The first outcome from this research is the development of tools to assist and train the Australian accountancy profession in the estimation of reliable emissions. The second outcome is identification of fac ....The reliability of corporate reporting of greenhouse gas estimates: Determinants, consequences, training for accountants and policy Initiatives. Fundamental to the successful re-allocation of resources to address climate change is that greenhouse gas estimates reported by firms are reliable. The first outcome from this research is the development of tools to assist and train the Australian accountancy profession in the estimation of reliable emissions. The second outcome is identification of factors associated with the inaccuracy and bias of greenhouse gas emissions reported by companies and the consequences of the inaccuracies for the share market's valuation of emission liabilities. These research findings will identify issues that need to be addressed by regulators to ensure that the greenhouse gas estimates reported by companies are reliable.Read moreRead less
Epistemically feasible choice: implications for sustainable risk management. The aim of this project is to examine procedural decision principles that will yield better choices in circumstances where, because of epistemic limitations, standard decision theory provides an inadequate guide. Individuals and policy-makers must make decisions even though they cannot be fully aware of all of the relevant possibilities or fully understand consequences they have not yet experienced. Examples include ind ....Epistemically feasible choice: implications for sustainable risk management. The aim of this project is to examine procedural decision principles that will yield better choices in circumstances where, because of epistemic limitations, standard decision theory provides an inadequate guide. Individuals and policy-makers must make decisions even though they cannot be fully aware of all of the relevant possibilities or fully understand consequences they have not yet experienced. Examples include individual decisions about marriage and childbearing, public policy decisions about complex environmental problems and decisions on funding scientific research. The expected outcome of the project will be a formal model of decision theory incorporating principles of resilience, sustainability and transformative experience.Read moreRead less
The value of financial planning advice - process and outcome effects on consumer well-being. Knowledge of how financial advice contributes to consumer well-being is vital as industry and policy-makers strive to professionalise financial planning and enhance the quality of advice. Outcomes of this research project will inform policy debate and industry practices for improving the value of financial planning advice to consumers and their well-being.
Ensuring Australia's competitiveness by implementing targeted performance measurement systems across the extended supply chain. This project will develop a framework to guide managers in designing, implementing, and using performance measurement systems across the industry supply chain to maximise the potential benefits of supply chain management. The outcomes enhance organisational competitiveness, supply chain competitiveness and boost Australia's economy.
InformationTechnology (IT) Audit Methodologies in the Australian Public Sector: Addressing Mandatory Requirements of International Standards. The primary benefit occurs in relation to National Research Priority 3: Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries, notably Priority Goal 'Smart Information Use', as it will enable more sophisticated and accurate assessments of current IT audit methodologies. In turn, these improvements will enable more effective IT audits by ....InformationTechnology (IT) Audit Methodologies in the Australian Public Sector: Addressing Mandatory Requirements of International Standards. The primary benefit occurs in relation to National Research Priority 3: Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries, notably Priority Goal 'Smart Information Use', as it will enable more sophisticated and accurate assessments of current IT audit methodologies. In turn, these improvements will enable more effective IT audits by government audit offices in Australia, bringing reduced risk and increased efficiency to organisations subject to audit, as well as increasing conformance with the new accounting and auditing standards. Furthermore, all Australian citizens, (the indirect clients of public sector audit services), will benefit from well-managed program-delivery systems.Read moreRead less
Robust Productivity Measurement: An Econometric Distance Function Approach. Accurate measures of productivity are required in a range of economic analyses. For example, in the assessment of the success of microeconomic reforms, or in price-cap regulation of utility and transport infrastructure firms. In this project we investigate the use of econometric distance functions as a means of obtaining improved productivity measures. This new approach addresses the main criticisms of alternative ap ....Robust Productivity Measurement: An Econometric Distance Function Approach. Accurate measures of productivity are required in a range of economic analyses. For example, in the assessment of the success of microeconomic reforms, or in price-cap regulation of utility and transport infrastructure firms. In this project we investigate the use of econometric distance functions as a means of obtaining improved productivity measures. This new approach addresses the main criticisms of alternative approaches, such as the single output restriction in the production function approach, the optimisation assumptions embedded in both the value dual approach and the Törnqvist index approach, and the statistical noise criticism of the data envelopment analysis approach.Read moreRead less
Reliability of purchasing power parities from the World Bank. This project aims to provide an econometric framework to estimate purchasing power parities (PPPs) and a method to compute standard errors associated with the World Bank’s International Comparison Programme (ICP)’s PPPs. The ICP regularly compiles and publishes estimates of PPPs of currencies and real incomes. These results are used for study of global inequality and poverty; macroeconomic analysis; the Human Development Index; and cr ....Reliability of purchasing power parities from the World Bank. This project aims to provide an econometric framework to estimate purchasing power parities (PPPs) and a method to compute standard errors associated with the World Bank’s International Comparison Programme (ICP)’s PPPs. The ICP regularly compiles and publishes estimates of PPPs of currencies and real incomes. These results are used for study of global inequality and poverty; macroeconomic analysis; the Human Development Index; and cross-country productivity comparisons. However, no estimates of ICP PPPs’ reliability are available. Results from this project are likely to improve the quality of widely used data sets including the Penn World Tables and the University of Queensland International Comparison Database relevant to banking.Read moreRead less
Assessing and addressing tax system complexity in Australia. Tax reform and simplification are highly topical in government, business and the wider community, with many initiatives proposed or under way. This project will identify the key factors in tax system complexity, measure the costs it imposes upon taxpayers and develop complexity indices that can test new policy measures and monitor improvements.
A Longitudinal Study of Recurrent Audit Failure in Australian Corporate Collapses from 1885 to the Present. As starkly illustrated with Enron in the US and with HIH in Australia, corporate collapse and audit failure may be interrelated. In response to repeated instances of audit failure, legislative and other reforms are typically adopted in order to ensure that auditor indiscretions are curtailed. Unfortunately, audit failure persists. This longitudinal Australian study of audit failure in the ....A Longitudinal Study of Recurrent Audit Failure in Australian Corporate Collapses from 1885 to the Present. As starkly illustrated with Enron in the US and with HIH in Australia, corporate collapse and audit failure may be interrelated. In response to repeated instances of audit failure, legislative and other reforms are typically adopted in order to ensure that auditor indiscretions are curtailed. Unfortunately, audit failure persists. This longitudinal Australian study of audit failure in the context of corporate collapse from the mid 1880s aims to enhance an understanding of audit failure and why it recurs. The study's findings are expected to inform future enquires and court cases and assist in developing public policy and future legislative reforms.Read moreRead less