The Role of Accounting in the Financial Crisis: Lessons for the Future

The advent of the Great Recession in 2008 was the culmination of a perfect storm of lax regulation, a growing housing bubble, rising popularity of derivatives instruments, and questionable banking practices. In addition to these causes, management incentives as well as certain U.S. accounting standards contributed to the financial crisis. We outline the significant effects of these incentive structures and the role of fair value accounting standards during the crisis, and discuss implications and relevance of these rules to practitioners, standard-setters, and academics

Symbols of priority? How the media selectively report on parties' election campaigns

Leaders and MPs serve as the party’s public face. Their image casts a shadow in which observers interpret policy statements. We hypothesize that media cover and voters understand policy messages through the lens of prominent party members' characteristics. Easy-to-observe descriptive traits, such as gender or ethnicity, cue parties' policy priorities. Media are more likely to emphasize party messages on issues historically related to these groups when they are visible in the party's public image. We test hypotheses from our theory using data on prominent party members' descriptive characteristics, policy statements, and media coverage of statements from the European Election Studies. Data from the 1999, 2004 and 2009 European elections evidence support for our theory. Parties with more female representatives signal stronger emphasis on gendered issues in media reports. The results hold implications for our understanding of the ways in which parties deliver and voters receive campaign messages. This research offers an explanation for voters' limited knowledge of parties' policy positions; media reinforce existing gender stereotypes and voters' pre-dispositions by selectively reporting policy statements

Information and Arena: The Dual Function of the News Media for Political Elites

Abstract: How do individual politicians use the news media to reach their political goals? This study addresses the question by proposing an actor-centered, functional approach. We distinguish 2 essential functions (and subfunctions) the mass media have for political elites. The media are a source of information; politicians depend on it for pure information and they can profit from the momentum generated by media information. The media also are an arena elites need access to in order to promote themselves and their issues. These 2 functions offer certain politicians a structural advantage over others and, hence, are relevant for the power struggle among political elites. A systematic functional account enables comparisons of the role of the media across politicians and political systems

Agenda setting : reading on media, public opinion, and policymaking/ Edit. : David L. Protess

ix, 310 hal; 23 cm