Knowledge that Transforms

We investigate firms’ choices between the purchase and pooling methods in stock-for-stock acquisitions. We find that in acquisitions with large step-ups to targets’ net assets, CEOs with earnings-based compensation are more likely to choose pooling and avoid the earnings ‘penalty’ associated with purchases. We find no association between stock-based compensation and the purchase–pooling choice, suggesting that managers are not concerned about implications of large step-ups for firms’ equity values. We also find that the likelihood of purchase increases with debt contracting costs, consistent with its favorable balance sheet effects, and with costs of qualifying for pooling, particularly the restriction of share repurchases.

This study investigates the effect of changing tax accounting provisions for long-term manufacturing contracts between 1984–1985 and 1989–1990 on debt and accrual policies using a simultaneous equations approach. The results indicate that firms adjust debt ratios and discretionary accruals with relatively high book-tax conformity to achieve tax planning goals and use discretionary accruals with relatively low book-tax conformity to accomplish financial reporting objectives. Manufacturing firms directly affected by the change in tax rules for long-term contracts increase their leverage by 6.2 percentage points more than other manufacturers.

We analyze the effect of tax-based transaction structure on the acquisition price of corporate subsidiaries. For a sample of 200 subsidiary stock acquisitions, the evidence weakly supports the conclusion that acquisition premiums are higher in transactions accompanied by an I.R.C. §338(h)(10) election. We find that the tax benefits generated by the §338(h)(10) election are positively correlated with acquisition premiums. Overall, this study indicates that the tax structure of a subsidiary sale influences the price paid in the transaction, and the tax structure selected is a function of a divesting parent's tax basis in the subsidiary's stock and net assets.

This paper assesses whether insurers’ state taxes reduce purchases of property-casualty coverage. Tests are conducted using state aggregates of insurer-level data from publicly available, annual accounting reports for 1993–1995. A positive relation between self-insurance and state taxes is detected, consistent with consumers opting to self-insure rather than bear the incidence of higher insurer taxes. As expected, tax effects vary with the elasticity of demand. When demand is largely inelastic, e.g., automobile liability coverage, taxes do not affect self-insurance.

This paper investigates whether the accrual pricing anomaly documented by Sloan (1996. The Accounting Review 71(3), 289–316) for annual data holds for quarterly data and whether this form of market mispricing is distinct from the post-earnings announcement drift anomaly. We find that the market appears to overestimate the persistence of the accrual component of quarterly earnings and, therefore, tends to overprice accruals. Moreover, the accrual mispricing appears to be distinct from post-earnings announcement drift. A hedge portfolio trading strategy that exploits both forms of market mispricing generates abnormal returns in excess of those based on either unexpected earnings or accruals information alone.

Large clients create an economic dependence that may cause auditors to compromise their independence and report favorably to retain valuable clients. Economic dependence is measured as a client's size relative to the size of the office that contracts for the audit and issues the audit report. We find no evidence economic dependence causes Big Five auditors to report more favorably for larger clients in their offices. However, larger clients also pose greater litigation risk, and we do find that Big 5 auditors report more conservatively for larger clients, suggesting that reputation protection dominates auditor behavior.

This paper examines individual investors’ short- and long-term trading reactions to the 1986 Tax Reform Act's (TRA 86) capital gain tax rate increase. Consistent with a tax-induced trading model, we document a December 1986 change in year-end trading patterns. TRA 86 also had long-term effects on individual investors’ trading decisions. The results suggest that individual investors were less (more) willing to sell accrued gain (loss) stocks after TRA 86. Our ability to document predicted trading behavior is in part due to our trading metric, which captures individual investors’ selling activity better than the volume-based metrics used in prior research.