We applied the VARMA test to examine the dynamic relation between prices and interest rates. The dynamic relation, which is important to characterize the nature of the Gibson paradox, provides economists new insight in discriminating against competing theories. In light of our empirical findings, all theories in the literature lose their persuasiveness. We found some evidence of unidirectional relation from prices to interest rates, but we found no evidence of unidirectional relation from interest rates to prices. Hence, the business cycle explanations advanced by Wicksell (1907), Keynes (1930), Lee and Petruzzi (1986), and Barsky and Summers (1988) are especially in jeopardy. A century and a half after its birth, this paradox is more puzzling than ever.

This paper adapts Dye's (1995) model to evaluate the effects of the 150-hour rule on the audit market. Incorporating the auditors’ education as a joint input with the audit effort for determining the audit quality, we show that the audit fee is higher, pre-rule CPAs are better off, and audit clients are worse off as results of the Rule. Additionally, more pre-rule CPAs elect to enter the audit market. Some less wealthy post-rule CPAs who would otherwise get into the audit market choose not to. Surprisingly, the average audit quality in the market can be lower due to the Rule.

[We construct a dynamic multi-agent moral hazard model to analyze the interactions among the firm owner, the manager and the auditor. Moral hazard may arise in hierarchical agency because a rational monitoring agent may accept a side payment from the monitored agent for misrepresenting information to the principal. This multi-agent moral hazard problem is the essence of the concern for auditor independence. We show that a "low-balling" compensation scheme and the auditor's legal liability constitute an efficient dynamic contracting mechanism for hierarchical agency. In particular, low balling serves as a substitute for legal liabilities for maintaining auditor independence. Low balling reduces the transaction costs associated with the audit engagement relative to the flat-fee structure and can actually improve auditor independence.]

We develop a novel term-structure model for pricing GDP-linked bonds, hypothetical securities with cash-flows indexed to the level of U.S. GDP. For this purpose, we rely on a term-structure model of equity yields estimated using the prices of dividend swaps, which we assume span GDP growth. Our approach provides a novel way of estimating the relative cost of conventional and GDP-linked bonds, as well as measuring more general market-based expectations of (and risks around) GDP growth. Our model predicts that U.S. GDP-linked bonds would typically have yields lower than those on conventional Treasury bonds with the same maturity in our sample from 2010 to 2017. Positive expected future GDP growth lowers the yield on GDP-linked bonds relative to conventional bonds, which typically more than offsets the estimated GDP risk premium demanded by investors for holding GDP risk.

This paper analyzes the Gibson paradox, a strong positive correlation between prices and interest rates over the past 250 years. The phenomenon of Gibson's paradox is significant in Britain but not significant in the United States. However, there is a significant correlation between British interest rates and U.S. price levels. The price movements show a strong characteristic of random walk under the gold standard, but appear not to be random walk under the non-gold standard. Based on (a) the price random walk assumption and (b) the real return arbitrage assumption, this paper constructs a simple model to explain the above interesting empirical results.

[This article investigates empirically how returns and volatilities of stock indices are correlated between the Tokyo and New York markets. Using intradaily data that define daytime and overnight returns for both markets, we find that Tokyo (New York) daytime returns are correlated with New York (Tokyo) overnight returns. We interpret this result as evidence that information revealed during the trading hours of one market has a global impact on the returns of the other market. In order to extract the global factor from the daytime returns of one market, we propose and estimate a signal-extraction model with GARCH processes.]

One question development economists are especially interested in, but so far left unanswered, is: how would the societal income distribution be affected by introducing a family-planning program to reduce the reproduction rate of the poor, which is usually high in developing countries? The purpose of this paper is to search for analytical answers to this question. We are able to make definite comparisons about some class of inequality measures of the steady-state societal income distributions, and these comparisons provide strong theoretical support in favor of the above-mentioned family-planning program.

Farre-Mensa, Michaely and Schmalz (2018) document that many firms issue new equity to finance their payouts to shareholders, despite the substantial cost of equity issuance. We find that equity-financed payouts are related to institutional investors’ horizon. Specifically, firms with a larger ownership by short-horizon institutions are more likely to have equity-financed discretionary payouts, and firms with equity-financed discretionary payouts tend to cut down their investments in the following years. Our results suggest that investor short-termism has significant effects on firms’ payout, financing and investment policies.