Knowledge that Transforms

We simultaneously address three basic issues regarding the corporation: the optimal scope of operation, the optimal financial structure, and the relationship between these two. The starting point is that financial structure serves as a bonding device on the managers' self-interest behavior. The effectiveness of this bonding depends on the distribution of the firm's future cash flow, which in turn depends on the firm's scope. Our theory also links the firm's investment decisions to its operation scope. As empirical implications, the theory reconciles the failure of the 1960s U.S. conglomerates with the success of the Japanese Keiretsu.

ABSTRACT This article examines the conflict of interest between shareholders and bondholders in a setting in which firms can renegotiate the terms of existing debt with public debtholders. In particular, we consider one of the most common types of debt restructuring: the exit‐exchange offer. Our analysis explores the relation between exit‐exchange offers and investment choice by the manager, and it concludes that managers, acting strategically on behalf of shareholders, may select inefficient investment projects in order to enhance their bargaining position vis‐a‐vis creditors. Holding the upside potential of an investment project fixed, managers/shareholders prefer projects with lower payoffs in states of bankruptcy because it induces individual bondholders to accept poorer terms in a debt‐for‐debt exit‐exchange offer, thus generating a greater residual for shareholders in states of solvency. Additionally, we show how the investment inefficiencies in our analysis depend on (i) the inability of bondholders to coordinate their actions; (ii) the ability of managers to commit to suboptimal investment projects; and (iii) the coupling of an individual bondholder's decision to tender and her decision to consent to allow the firm to strip fiduciary covenants. We suggest conditions under which a ban on coupled exit‐exchange offers—or alternatively, constraints on “debt‐for‐debt” exchanges—would be efficiency‐enhancing.

We investigate the nature and magnitude of short-selling activity around seasoned equity offerings, the relation between short-selling activity and issue discounts, and the consequences of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC's) adoption of Rule 10b-21 in response to concerns about manipulative short-selling practices. Seasoned offerings are characterized by abnormally high levels of short selling and option open interest. Higher levels of such activity are related to lower expected proceeds from the issuance of new shares. Where it could not be circumvented, Rule 10b-21 appears to have curbed short-selling activity and reduced issue discounts.

ABSTRACT A cash‐in‐advance model of a monetary economy is used to derive a money‐based CAPM (M‐CAPM), which allows us to implement tests of asset pricing restrictions without consumption data. A test as in Fama and MacBeth of the model suggests that the money betas have some explanatory power for the cross‐sectional variation of expected returns; however, the model is rejected using conditional information. Consistent with our predictions, estimates of the curvature parameter are lower than those of the consumption CAPM (C‐CAPM) and pricing errors of the M‐CAPM tend to be smaller than those of the C‐CAPM.

Never has there been so much media interest in pensions as there is currently. Never has the pensions world changed so rapidly as it has over the last few years; we have seen the introduction of a new state supplementary pension scheme, new stakeholder pensions, and a flood of companies closing their final salary schemes and replacing them with defined contribution schemes. Never have there been so many complaints about our pension system; about the state pension falling behind earnings, about the misselling of personal pensions, about the perceived poor value of annuities, and about high charges and poor investment performance. This new edition of Pension Schemes and Pension Funds in the United Kingdom provides the latest information on all the key state and private pension schemes operating in the UK, including: the basic state pension, minimum income guarantee and pension credit; the state second pension; company pension schemes; and personal and stakeholder pension schemes. It does this within the context of the long historical development of the UK pensions system since medieval times. It also examines government pensions policy over the last twenty years, in particular the reduction in state pensions and the transfer of the burden of pension provision to the funded private sector. It also examines future trends and future concerns, such as increasing longevity and the adequacy of savings for retirement when people are young and in work. As most pension schemes are funded, the author also examines the latest issues in pension funding, such as the new accounting standard FRS17, active and passive fund management, investment risk budgeting and management, global investment performance standards, short-termism and the Myners review of institutional investment. The book concludes with a proposal for the Ideal Pension Scheme.

ABSTRACT The issuer's decision to include warrants as compensation to underwriters is studied for a sample of 1,991 negotiated firm commitment issues of seasoned equity. Using a two‐stage logit model to correct for self‐selection bias, we find direct evidence that warrant compensation functions as a bond, substituting for reputational capital and enabling the underwriter to certify the issue price. To a lesser degree, the decision also is affected by regulations on underwriter compensation and on the use of underwriter warrants. Issuers' decisions are consistent with an objective of minimizing total underwriting cost, including cash compensation, warrants, and underpricing.

ABSTRACT This study examines the behavior of laboratory markets in which two uninformed market makers compete to trade with heterogeneously informed investors. The data provide three main results. First, market makers set quotes to protect against adverse selection and to control inventory. Second, when investors are less well‐informed, their trades are less reliable measures of their information, and market makers respond to those trades with greater skepticism. Third, errors in market makers' reactions to trades cause the time‐series behavior of quotes and prices to depend on the information environment in ways beyond those captured in extant theory.

International Accounting and History, P.Walton Accounting in the Industrialisation of Westem Europe, J Foreman-Peck The History of financial Reporting in Austria, C. Nowotny and E. Gruber The History of Financial Reporting in Belgium, De Ronge, E. Henrion, and C. Vael The History of Financial Reporting in Denmark, M. Christiansen The History of Financial Reporting in Finland, S. Nasi The History of Financial Reporting in France, A. Mikol The History of financial Reporting in Germany, I. D. Schneider The History of Financial Reporting in Italy, L. Took The History of Financial Reporting in the Netherlands, K Camfferman The History of Financial Reporting in Norway, A. Kinserdahl The History of Financial Reporting in Spain, B. G. Inchausti The History of Financial Reporting in Sweden, S.-A. Nilsson The History of Financial Reporting in Switzerland, A.-K Achleitner The History of Financial Reporting in the UK, C. Napier.