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In the past decade, there has been an increasing level of distress over the perceived lack of ethics exhibited by members of the accounting profession. This distress has resulted in a call for a greater emphasis on ethics coverage as part of a college-level accounting education. However, one could argue that the various organizations that are leading these calls, and the academic institutions which are charged with implementing this enhanced ethical education, often suffer from ethical failings of their own. The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree to which these organizations "practice what they preach." Recent history is rife with examples of ethical shortcomings on the part of accounting professionals; Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco come to mind as examples which have received extensive media coverage. The resultant public concern over ethics in accounting has led several governmental and professional bodies to mandate or promote codes of ethical conduct. The Congress of the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and other bodies have all made public pronouncements which explicitly insist upon the importance of ethical behavior. Similarly, many education-related organizations (i.e., universities and accrediting bodies) have taken the position that education in ethics is an essential part of any college-level education. Finally, although the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which formulates generally accepted accounting practices for commercial firms in the United States, has not made an explicit statement regarding the importance of ethics, the standards which they promulgate are the measure of what is and is not adequate financial disclosure. Since a failure to follow generally accepted accounting principles is usually thought of as misleading and hence, an ethical violation, it could be argued that the FASB is, in fact, charged with "codifying" ethical behavior as far as financial disclosure is concerned. All of the organizations mentioned above can be criticized, to some extent, for ethical failings of their own. Political bodies, such as the Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission, can often be accused of bowing to special interests and entities which enforce codes of ethics (whether the AICPA in accounting or the American Bar Association in the legal profession or the AMA in the medical profession) are often justly accused of turning a blind eye to all but the most egregious behavior of their members. The FASB, while ostensibly independent, is also subject to pressures in its standard setting process. Finally, the educational establishment has exhibited ethical shortcomings of its own. These problems run from well-publicized institution-wide problems in discrimination and college athletics down to the individual class and faculty member who engages in less-than-ethical behaviors. The paper will examine the recent ethical failings in business and the resultant calls for greater ethical behavior on the part of the accounting profession. A brief summary of some of the literature related to ethical education and development will then be presented. After this, the behaviors of the various regulatory, standard setting and educational institutions will be examined to determine the extent to which their individual behaviors coincide with their stated positions on ethical behavior and the degree to which these behaviors match the standards that we are encouraged to teach to our students.

Uno's reformulation of Marx's value-form theory has not been correctly understood. In highlighting the process of the emergence of money from the value expression of the commodity, not from commodity exchanges, it makes the first important step towards releasing economic theory from its bourgeois confines. In responding to Arthur's critique of the Uno School, here Sekine stresses the importance of distinguishing the supplier's value expression of the commodity from its demanders' measurement of value, in the light of which he shows that the passage from expanded to general value form, whether by Marx or by Arthur, makes no economic sense.

This article investigates how interest group competition, a state of conflicting policy preferences stemming from how organizational memberships are defined, can resolve into conflict or cooperation. The strategic choices of competing lobbyists are modeled as the results of a trade‐off between the need to represent members and please legislators, and the additional advocacy resources they hope to gain by agreeing to form coalitions with their competitors rather than fight them in resource‐draining conflicts. Hypotheses derived from the model are tested with data from interviews with lobbyists on six issues taken up by the U.S. Congress from 1999 to 2002. The results suggest that while group members do have some limited power to constrain the policy positions taken on issues by their lobbyists, it is primarily the pressures from legislators and competitor groups that push lobbyists into collectively supporting coalition positions different from those desired by their members.

In 1997, lobbyists for the Independent Insurance Agents of America,
under pressure from then Senate Banking Committee Chair Alfonse
D'Amato (R-NY), threw in the towel and agreed to negotiate with
their long time enemies, the banking and Wall Street investment
industries, on new laws structuring the financial industry for the
21st century. Their compromise removed a major
legislative barrier to facilitating the emergence of large, one-stop
shopping financial corporations. More surprisingly, the Consumer
Federation of America and other public interest groups also started
bargaining over the shape of the consumer protection laws governing
these new institutions. Getting something through bargaining, they
believed, was better than letting the financial industry write these
laws themselves. Not all consumer groups participated in these
negotiations or gave support to the final bill; there were just not
enough consumer protection provisions included to please their
ideologically motivated members. Nor did every banking and insurance
agent organization support the final deal, largely because their
members felt threatened by the prospect of an industry dominated by
a few financial behemoths. Yet the final interest group coalition
that drove the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 across President Bill
Clinton's desk was truly surprising in its ideological breadth.

Objective. Recent trends in urban research emphasize the importance of local nonprofits and social capital in the revitalization of poor and minority neighborhoods. This article tests the idea that urban communities able to mobilize themselves by establishing development nonprofits and overcoming collective action problems will be better able to make use of urban‐development policies.Methods. Measures operationalizing nonprofit presence and social capital are used in an empirical test to see if they can, through the medium of the Community Reinvestment Act, increase the number of mortgage and business loans in Washington, D.C.Results. These variables show only weak effects on mortgage lending, but very strong results for small‐business lending in all types of communities.Conclusions. The results suggest that nonprofits and social capital may have only limited benefit in the revitalization of urban neighborhoods and researchers and practitioners should be careful when relying on them.

Does the exchange model used to explain interest group influence with Congress & the bureaucracy hold leverage over patterns of lobbyist Contact with the president? In this paper I argue that there is good reason to believe that it does not. Rather, I argue that the president & his immediate staff often keep interest groups at arm's length. Instead of being able to acquire face time with senior administration staff to press their own cases, lobbyists are largely granted access only when they are needed to build support for the president's policy agenda in Congress or with the public. Using data drawn in part from the 1996 filings of interest groups under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, 1 analyze lobbyists' contact with the White House to learn what types of circumstances appear to drive contact between interest groups & the president. The evidence suggests that the president -- interest group connection is largely determined by the White House based on ideological congruence rather than a two-way flow of communication & influence. 3 Tables, 49 References. Adapted from the source document.

Objective. Recent trends in urban research emphasize the importance of local nonprofits & social capital in the revitalization of poor & minority neighborhoods. This article tests the idea that urban communities able to mobilize themselves by establishing development nonprofits & overcoming collective action problems will be better able to make use of urban-development policies. Methods. Measures operationalizing nonprofit presence & social capital are used in an empirical test to see if they can, through the medium of the Community Reinvestment Act, increase the number of mortgage & business loans in Washington, DC. Results. These variables show only weak effects on mortgage lending, but very strong results for small-business lending in all types of communities. Conclusions. The results suggest that nonprofits & social capital may have only limited benefit in the revitalization of urban neighborhoods & researchers & practitioners should be careful when relying on them. 4 Tables, 4 Figures, 42 References. Adapted from the source document.