Research

Investigations
> > After Enron, what's an audit committee to do?
Ask Roman Weil how to prevent another Enron, and the V. Duane Rath professor of accounting in the Graduate School of Business tells a parable about leases. "If a company leases a plane from another company," he posits, "whose balance sheet should list the plane?" The company leasing the plane doesn't own it and won't think to list it as an asset. Then again, because the lease is long-term the plane's lessor has essentially removed it from its inventory and turned a profit on it-so why, the leasing company's managers demand of their accountants, should the plane sit on its balance sheet?
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> > The politics of free trade
Free trade, most observers acknowledge, brings long-term economic gain. But does it also carry political consequences? Lloyd Gruber, associate professor in the Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy Studies, believes it does-and notes that they may be negative.
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> > A time before East vs. West
The stark, otherworldly images of Afghanistan filling newspaper pages and television screens have made many Americans feel exactly that: as if the Middle East is another world.
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