During the past few years there has been a considerable amount of writing and discussion in the accounting and engineering field on the subject of the valuation of assets, and especially has the valuation of fixed plant assets come in for much analysis and study. The increasing interest in this problem has been doubtless due, in no small measure, to the attention directed toward it by the income tax regulations and by the marked upward swing of prices from the prewar to the postwar level-a fact which has been of considerable importance and annoyance in numerous public utility valuations incident to the regulation of their rates. However, it may be said without fear of serious contradiction that, as a practical matter, the accountant in the past has not given sufficient consideration to this important problem. This article sets forth the various methods by which the facts of such a policy may be expressed in the accounts and operating statements, assuming that the policy has been decided upon.

This study examines turnover experiences in public accounting, including the exit phase (from public accountants' initial thoughts of leaving to their exit) and the post‐exit phase (from their exit to the present moment) of the turnover process. Drawing on social exchange theory and organizational support theory, we also investigate the relationship between these phases by exploring how turnover characteristics within the exit phase impact alumni's decisions to engage in post‐employment citizenship in the post‐exit phase (e.g., recommending the firm's services to others). Using the experiential questionnaire method, we rely upon two separate surveys to investigate the turnover process from the perspective of 284 firm alumni (“leavers”) and 83 experienced public accountants (“stayers”). Our process‐based research method allows us to gather a large and rich data set that provides multiple perspectives on the turnover experience in public accounting. Our results not only provide insights into the underlying factors influencing turnover but also indicate several places in the turnover decision process where firms can strategically intervene. Finally, our results show that several turnover characteristics within the exit phase impact post‐employment citizenship behaviors in the post‐exit phase. Consequently, our results demonstrate that the characteristics that drive employees' decisions to leave the firm also play a significant role in shaping their post‐employment citizenship behaviors following their departure.

The standard Medicare Part D drug insurance contract is non-linear—with reduced subsidies in a coverage gap—resulting in a dynamic purchase problem. We consider enrolees who arrived near the gap early in the year and show that they should expect to enter the gap with high probability, implying that, under a benchmark model with neoclassical preferences, the gap should impact them very little. We find that these enrolees have flat spending in a period before the doughnut hole and a large spending drop in the gap, providing evidence against the benchmark model. We structurally estimate behavioural dynamic drug purchase models and find that a price salience model where enrolees do not incorporate future prices into their decision-making at all fits the data best. For a nationally representative sample, full price salience would decrease enrolee spending by 31%. Entirely eliminating the gap would increase insurer spending 27%, compared to 7% for generic-drug-only gap coverage.

Prior researchers have deployed the Vietnam-era draft lottery as an instrument to estimate causal effects of military service on health and earnings. However, household and residential outcomes may be more sensitive to the psychological effects of military service. Using 2SLS analyses of the 2000 Census and the 2005 American Community Survey, we find mixed results for residential stability, housing tenure, and extended family residence. While in the ACS white veterans are less mobile, veteran status has no effect on homeownership. Veteran status reduces extended family living for whites in the Census but increases it for ACS veterans of “other” races.

We report the results of a cost-effective intervention to improve workers' performance in small cassava processing firms in Ghana. We train workers to track their daily output and then randomly assign a sub-sample to set daily production goals. Achieving or missing a goal does not carry monetary consequences. Goal setting increases workers' output by 16%, their productivity by 8% and the average product of labor in firms by 13%. Goal setting is particularly effective for piece-rate workers, increasing their output by 32% and productivity by 24%. While not conclusive, evidence suggests that goals serve as a self-regulation device.

Despite years of initiatives to improve gender equity in public accounting firms, women continue to be underrepresented at the partner level. Supporting women's aspirations to become partner is important to ensure there are more women in the pipeline of potential partners. However, we argue that challenges during the COVID‐19 pandemic are likely to have negative downstream effects on accounting firms' efforts to improve female partner representation. Therefore, using a survey of 192 certified public accountants (CPAs), we develop and test a theoretical model that examines changes in women's partner aspirations during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we predict that women experienced disproportionately higher role overload during the pandemic compared to men. We also rely upon COR theory to predict that higher levels of role overload will be associated with weakened partner‐track motivations (i.e., less value placed on the advantages of the partner level and lower willingness to make the sacrifices necessary to pursue the partner level) and weakened partner aspirations. Consequently, we expect that women public accountants experienced weakened partner aspirations through higher role overload during the pandemic. Results support our predictions as we find that women experienced higher levels of role overload, which are associated with weakened partner‐track motivations, which in turn are associated with weakened partner aspirations. In sum, our results suggest that the COVID‐19 pandemic exacerbated pre‐pandemic gender equity challenges within public accounting firms. Fortunately, we also find that higher levels of supervisor support and coworker support help limit role overload and mitigate declines in partner aspirations. We discuss several insights that firms can use to mitigate post‐pandemic declines in women's partner aspirations.