Housing Policy in Khartoum： Plot Subdivision for Increased Housing Supply for Low-income People

The article discusses plot size standards applied in the government sites-and-services projects in Khartoum and probes into the possible alternative ways of re-establishing solid grounds for those standards. The particular issue of plot size is a crucial factor in the whole housing policy as it directly affects the urban land use and consumption and extends its influence far into sustainability and affordability issues and the whole housing policy and supply process. The article, analysing the applied standards, argues that plot subdivision can substantially contribute to providing more access of housing to the low-income groups. Large plot sizes can be subdivided driven by the need to realize security of tenure, doubling the owner-occupier housing stock which is the base issue of self-help housing, increases housing finance, provides variety of housing choices and behind all it conforms to the legacy principles and some cultural attributes of the local community. The article underlined existence of a cumbersome regulatory system, subdivision procedures and development controls which need to be reformed.

Comprehensive Income （CI） Statement＇s Compliance With International Accounting Standard （IAS） 1 （Revised 2007 and 2011）： Evidence From Italian Listed Corporate Groups

The move towards international harmonization of accounting standards has dominated the work program of International Accounting Standards Board （IASB） in the past years. This paper aims to verify the compliance of the comprehensive income （CI） statement format with International Accounting Standard （IAS） 1-presentation of financial statements, which was revised in 2007. The changes introduced by the 2011 revision are also taken into account. For this purpose, this study analyzes the final annual financial statements approved in 2011 by the Italian companies whose shares belonged to the Italia Star segment of Financial Times and Stock Exchange （FTSE）. Given that IAS 1 provides little specific guidance about the presentation of line items and permits many alternative types of format, this paper focuses on information organization in the statement of CI in order to analyze the degree of heterogeneity of financial information. For achieving this goal, this study considers the following issues： （1） presentation of all items of income and expense in an overall statement or in two separate statements; （2） a detailed level of the content in terms of number of items between revenue and net income （NI）; （3） classification of expenses either by nature or by function; （4） number and type of intermediate margins; and （5） presentation of items of other comprehensive income （OCI） either before tax or net of tax. The results show some clear evidences. On the one hand, there is a high diversity in accounting practices, which makes it difficult for users to compare financial information across entities, highlighting the need to complete the joint project of the standards setters （IASB and Financial Accounting Standards Board （FASB）） on financial statement presentation. On the other hand, some alternative types of presentation （e.g., the tendency to split the CI statement into two statements rather than using an integrated solution, the prevalence to disaggregate the expenses by nature, etc.） are used by most of the entities of the sample possibly because of the influence of Italian accounting culture.

The Challenges of Assessing the Output of EmergentEconomies： The Case of Bahrain

Business analysts worldwide use the standard theories and tools of macroeconomics and finance to determine the investment, trade or production possibilities in foreign markets. These evaluations are generally supported by three sources： estimations of using country-specific macroeconomic data on which they can determine patterns of growth, inflation, unemployment, productivity, income per capita, etc.; timely data on current conditions and developments in production, income and spending; and institutional information on policy makers, business practices and financial markets. This paper focuses on the first two where we examine the publically available macroeconomic data for the Kingdom of Bahrain to determine their reliability. Among our findings are： （1） creating a reliable data base of macroeconomic data is difficult due to data revision and incomplete data gathering; （2） the movement of standard macro-variables is often unusual, leading one to question further the reliability of the data; （3） based on available data it appears that the growth in Bahrain has been driven almost solely by an increase in the number of people working, with little to no apparent rise in productivity; and （4） the growth of GDP will eventually be constrained by physical limits on population growth, and can be improved only if ways can be found to increase the productivity of the workforce.

The Key to Precise Poverty Alleviation Rests in the Precise Indentifi cation of Impoverished Populations——An Analysis of the Targeting Effectiveness of China’s Rural Dibao Program

The success of the poverty elimination program,as an important element in the strategy of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020,depends on the accurate identification of the population living in poverty.An analysis of 2013 data from the China Household Income Project(CHIP 2013)shows that in terms of the income-based poverty line,the targeting of the current rural minimum living standard guarantee or subsistence allowance program(dibao)program is very imprecise;it improves with the use of multidimensional poverty criteria,but coverage remains poor.In order to unify the criteria for the rural poverty alleviation(fupin)criteria and the dibao criteria,a uniform set of national criteria should be established.This should shift from income as the sole criterion to multidimensional criteria,so that a uniform scheme can be developed to identify those in need.At the same time,the coverage of the dibao program should be extended and the transfer amounts increased,so that the scheme genuinely covers all of the target population in rural China.