Professors Lewellen and Edmister (L-E) are to be complimented on careful development and specification of the basic conceptual framework for an accounts-receivable control model. I consider the model to be a real contribution to the basic theory of financial management and will find it a useful supplement to my basic financial management classes.

The purpose of this paper is to consider some problems arising in several applications of the theory of portfolio analysis pioneered by Markowitz [8] and Tobin [13]. This theory of asset choice under uncertainty has been applied to a large and growing set of problems beyond the original application to the selection of the investor's optimal portfolio, e.g., the capital budgeting decision of the firm (Lintner [7]), international capital flows (Grubel [5]), the choice of an export mix for a country (Brainard and Cooper [1] and the flow of direct investment (Stevens [12] and Prachowny [10]). In all applications a common element is the set of efficient portfolios which, in turn, is determined. by the set of moments—means, variances, and covariances—of the returns from the different assets that are. Considered for inclusion in the portfolio.

Financial analysts have been intrigued by bond ratings since John Moody first started publishing them in 1909. Bond ratings are assigned by three agencies (Moody's, Standard and Poor's (S&P), and Fitch); these ratings are widely publicized and are, therefore, critically important. A bond's rating affects investors' purchase decisions and, consequently, the issuing firm's cost of debt and, indirectly, its cost of equity.

More than twenty years ago the portfolio selection problem was stated as a parametric quadratic programming problem [3]. Since that time there has been an ongoing search for methods that would allow reductions in both the data and the computational effort required to implement the Markowitz formulation. Markowitz himself developed a special algorithm for the problem [4] Sharpe followed with his famous diagonal model [6], a linear programming approximation for the special case of mutual funds [7], and a linear programming approximation for the general problem [0]. And during this period there were substantial advances in quadratic programming computer codes. A very fast code is now widely available [1], but the size of the code itself (a listing of the annotated program runs to more than 3, 000 lines) makes its everyday use for portfolio selection somewhat unattractive.

In the evaluation of investment opportunities risk is often a primary consideration. Risk is usually not a factor of such importance, however, in the evaluation of borrowing opportunities. But when the borrowing opportunities include the borrowing of foreign currencies, then the possibility of exchange rate fluctuations during the loan period may introduce a significant component of risk. It is our purpose to develop a method for evaluating and selecting international borrowing sources in the face of exchange rate uncertainties.

I empirically investigate the relation between chief executive officer (CEO) inside debt holdings and mergers and acquisitions (M&As), and find evidence consistent with the agency theory’s prediction of a negative relation between CEO inside debt holdings and corporate risk taking. Further analysis shows that CEO inside debt holdings are positively correlated with M&A announcement abnormal bond returns and long-term operating performance, but negatively correlated with M&A announcement abnormal stock returns. Finally, I find evidence that acquirers restructure the postmerger composition of CEO compensation that mirrors their capital structure in order to alleviate incentives for wealth transfer from shareholders to bondholders or vice versa.

This paper investigates whether management stock ownership and large non-management blockholder share ownership are related to firm value across a sample of 1433 firms from 18 emerging markets. When a management group's control rights exceed its cash flow rights, I find that firm values are lower. I also find that large non-management control rights blockholdings are positively related to firm value. Both of these effects are significantly more pronounced in countries with low shareholder protection. One interpretation of these results is that external shareholder protection mechanisms play a role in restraining managerial agency costs and that large non-management blockholders can act as a partial substitute for missing institutional governance mechanisms.

P. V. Viswanath, Strategic Considerations, the Pecking Order Hypothesis, and Market Reactions to Equity Financing, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 213-234

This paper studies the dynamic investment policies of firms under asymmetric information.Managers make decisions to maximize the wealth of existing shareholders. In equilibrium, the superior firms invest “myopically”, choosing intrinsically lower-valued projects that produce “early” cash flows. The inferior firms follow the socially preferred rule of investing in intrinsically higher-valued projects that produce “late” cash flows. In addition to explaining investment myopia, the model generates numerous predictions regarding announcement effects of equity issues and attempts by firms to stockpile cash, firms' preferences for limits on mandatory disclosure rules, and the effects of managerial entrenchment motives.