Knowledge that Transforms

This study is a refinement and an extension of an earlier study by McCulloch of tax effects in the regression equation for term structure estimation. This study includes tests for tax effects and heteroskedasticity, a reconsideration of the need for an instrumental variable, and a search for the capital gains tax rate in addition to the ordinary‐income tax rate. There are two major findings: (1) statistically significant tax‐induced bias in the non‐tax‐adjusted equation and (2) evidence that the capital gains tax is misspecified in the tax‐adjusted equation.

Wayne H. Mikkelson, On the Existence of an Optimal Capital Structure: Theory and Evidence: Discussion, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 39, No. 3, Papers and Proceedings, Forty-Second Annual Meeting, American Finance Association, San Francisco, CA, December 28-30, 1983 (Jul., 1984), pp. 878-880

In recent years, many of the restrictions on banking activities adopted following the banking collapse of the 1930s have been eroded by improvements in technology and high interest rates, which led to increasing direct competition from unregulated institutions. Beginning in the 1970s, the regulatory agencies, state legislatures, and the Congress have moved to liberalize these restrictions. Based on research on economies of scale and scope, the experience of the conglomerate merger movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the observed effects of changes in state laws governing branches and holding companies, foreign experience, and experience in other industries that underwent deregulation, banking deregulation is likely to lead to reductions in the number of banks and increases in their efficiency, geographic scope, and product diversification. Such an outcome is consistent with the survival of a large number and variety of financial institutions and need not endanger the safety of the banking system.

Richard J. Rogalski, A Further Investigation of the Weekend Effect in Stock Returns: Discussion, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 39, No. 3, Papers and Proceedings, Forty-Second Annual Meeting, American Finance Association, San Francisco, CA, December 28-30, 1983 (Jul., 1984), pp. 835-837

This study develops and tests a methodology for reducing interest rate risk in a fixed spot portfolio of assets and liabilities with default‐free cash flows. A minimum variance hedge is constructed by adding a portfolio of financial futures to the spot portfolio. Theorems are given which establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of unique and zero‐variance hedges. The risk reduction characteristics of the methodology are demonstrated by an empirical analysis.

The primary purpose of this paper is the use of survey expectations data to study the empirical relationships between stock returns, inflation, and economic activity. In the course of this analysis and as a secondary purpose, the paper discusses general considerations involving the use of expectations proxies and makes recommendations for econometric techniques. The main empirical findings are: (1) Hypothesized relationships between expected economic activity and expected inflation do not in practice appear to be important in explaining the negative relationship between expected inflation and stock returns. (2) Nevertheless, the survey data do lend some support to the hypothesis of a quantity theory relationship between expected inflation and expected economic activity, holding constant monetary growth. (3) The cross‐forecaster dispersion of economic activity forecasts, a proxy for real uncertainty, appears to be a significant determinant of stock returns. Inclusion of this variable eliminates the negative impact of expected inflation.