This study empirically examines the association between certain director characteristics and the extent of voluntary audit committee disclosure in annual reports. Results suggest that Singapore's publicly traded firms are more likely to voluntarily disclose audit committee related information as: the number of board members increases; different individuals occupy the roles of CEO and board chairperson; and the proportion of independent directors serving on the board increases. Findings, however, fail to show any association between the amount of voluntary audit committee disclosure (...) and the percentage of executive directors' ownership. Documented findings are of interest and benefit to various parties including regulators, corporate governance reformists, and corporate management. For instance, findings imply that a positive by-product of implementing major corporate governance reforms currently championed by corporate governance reformists will be an increase in audit committee disclosures. As a result, there will be less pressure on regulators to develop, introduce, and enforce mandatory audit committee disclosures that may be potentially intrusive to a firm's management. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the link between audit committees and earnings management providing a more comprehensive simultaneous analysis of the influence of audit committee features using a sample of 485 firm-years from Singapore's publicly traded firms during the 2000 2001 calendar period. Empirical findings indicate firms with a higher proportion of independent audit committee members are more effective at constraining earnings management. Firms with audit committees that are more diligent and/or lack the presence of independent directors serving simultaneously on (...) a substantial number of boards and committees are more effective at constraining earnings management. These findings are robust to alternative income-incentives facing corporate management. Overall, our findings have implications for stakeholders, regulators, and corporate governance. For example, our findings infer policymakers may need to focus on other audit committee characteristics to strengthen the committee's ability to constrain earnings management rather than continue the present fixation with independence. (shrink)

Hanlester Network v. Shalala ) marks the first test of the application of the Medicare-Medicaid anti-kickback statute to physician self-referral joint ventures. The most recent development in this ongoing litigation was the April 6, 1995 decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, holding the Hanlester Network vicariously liable for its marketing vice president's knowing and willful violation of the antikickback statute. The vice president had offered to pay physician-investors in order to induce their referrals of program-related business.The Hanlester Network (...) was a California general partnership comprised of corporations, clinical laboratories, and individual investors. In April 1987, it entered into a management agreement on behalf of the clinical laboratories with SmithKline BioScience Laboratories. (shrink)

The paper studies the impact of informational ambiguity on behalf of informed traders on history-dependent price behaviour in a model of sequential trading in financial markets. Following Chateauneuf et al., we use neo-additive capacities to model ambiguity. Such ambiguity and attitudes to it can engender herd and contrarian behaviour, and also cause the market to break down. The latter, herd and contrarian behaviour, can be reduced by the existence of a bid-ask spread.

In the Netherlands, the legalization of assisted suicide for persons with a death wish without severe illness, often referred to as persons with “completed life” or “tiredness of life,” is intensel...

Ben Saunders claims that actual consent is not necessary for organ donation due to ‘normative consent’, a concept he borrows from David Estlund. Combining normative consent with Peter Singer's ‘greater moral evil principle’, Saunders argues that it is immoral for an individual to refuse consent to donate his or her organs. If a presumed consent policy were thus adopted, it would be morally legitimate to remove organs from individuals whose wishes concerning donation are not known. This paper disputes Saunders' arguments. (...) First, if death caused by the absence of organ transplant is the operational premise, then, there is nothing of comparable moral precedence under which a person is not obligated to donate. Saunders' use of Singer's principle produces a duty to donate in almost all circumstances. However, this premise is based on a flawed interpretation of cause and effect between organ availability and death. Second, given growing moral and scientific agreement that the organ donors in heart-beating and non-heart-beating procurement protocols are not dead when their organs are surgically removed, it is not at all clear that people have a duty to consent to their lives being taken for their organs. Third, Saunders' claim that there can be good reasons for refusing consent clashes with his claim that there is a moral obligation for everyone to donate their organs. Saunders' argument is more consistent with a conclusion of ‘mandatory consent’. Finally, it is argued that Saunders' policy, if put into place, would be totalitarian in scope and would therefore be inconsistent with the freedom required for a democratic society. (shrink)

This paper traces the origins of the concept of personalisation in public sector services, and applies it to school education. The original conceptualisation stressed the need for 'deep' rather than shallow, personalisation, if radical transformation of services were to be achieved. It is argued that as the concept has been disseminated and implemented through policy documents, notably the 2005 White Paper, it has lost its original emphasis on deep personalisation. The focus in this article is particularly upon gifted and talented (...) students whose education provides the best case example of how the theory of personalisation might work in practice. Two examples of the lessons in a sixth form college are used to illustrate the character ofpersonalised pedagogy in practice. The implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

This volume is intended for use in an undergraduate philosophy course employing the problems' approach. Chapter I provides a clear presentation of Cartesian rationalism. Following the exposition of Descartes' position, there is a section on the standard criticisms levelled by B. Russell. Aune defends the rationalist position with an outline of the traditional arguments for the validity of intuitive knowledge. Chapter I terminates with a list of "Study Questions" and an annotated bibliography suggesting further readings. Chapter II considers classical English (...) empiricism, taking the thought of Hume as paradigmatic. There is a discussion of a priori and a posteriori knowledge as well as a section on the problems of induction and solipsism. Chapter III outlines the attempts of contemporary empiricists to eschew Hume's skepticism by envisioning the world as a construct of our sensory experiences. To avoid the solipsism still implicit in the latter position, a re-evaluation of Hume's theory of perception is offered. Wittgenstein and Strawson are briefly treated in this section. Chapter IV explains the pragmatist's attempt to reduce to the same untenable position the rationalist and empiricist views of the a priori. Chapter V concentrates on the pragmatic theory of justification and includes a treatment of N. Goodman's "new riddle of induction." Aune's book is a readable account of conflicting theories of knowledge and undergraduates should find it of value.--W. J. L. (shrink)