Abstract To create value and reduce agency costs, firms adopt available organizational structures that match their attributes. This paper studies the characteristics of firms that choose to become master limited partnerships (MLPs). The MLP sample is dominated by firms in low-growth industries that have highly focused operations and superior profitability compared to their industry peers. After becoming an MLP, sample firms reduce capital expenditures and increase cash distributions, taking advantage of their focus, profitability, and status as non-taxable entities. A subsample of MLPs subsequently change back to corporate form. After becoming corporations, these firms reverse course by cutting cash distributions and increasing capital spending. This cycle demonstrates how firms restructure to adopt organizational forms that best fit their needs.

This paper presents a model of large institutional and small individual investors choosing stocks. Dividend policy of firms is determined by the preferences of the resulting stockholders. Large investors choose to invest in large corporations because it lowers their transaction costs. Since these institutions prefer dividends, the large corporations choose to pay dividends, while the small corporations, owned by individuals, do not. The results show that firm size and liquidity explain the decision ofwhetherto pay dividends well, whereas existing informational explanations (such as monitoring and signaling) explain thelevelof dividends well.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: G32, G35, G11.

Laureen A. Maines, Linda S. McDaniel, Mary S. Harris, Implications of Proposed Segment Reporting Standards for Financial Analysts' Investment Judgements, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 35, Studies on Experts and the Application of Expertise in Accounting, Auditing, and Tax (1997), pp. 1-24

This paper derives a multibeta representation theorem for pricing assets using arbitrary reference variables that are not necessarily the true factors. Under this theorem, the upper bound on pricing deviations depends upon the correlations not only between the reference variables and the factors but also between the reference variables and the residual risks. A new concept of a well-diversified variable is introduced, which though free of residual risk, may be less than perfectly correlated with the true factors. Welldiversified variables correlated with the factors play a key role in the pricing of assets, since these variables can replace the factors without any loss in pricing accuracy under all linear asset pricing theories.

Managers, consultants, and the financial press assert that compensation plans based on residual income change managers' behavior. This assertion is empirically tested by selecting a sample of firms that began using a residual income performance measure in their compensation plans and comparing their performance to a control sample of firms that continue to use traditional accounting earnings-based incentives. The results generally support the adage `you get what you measure and reward'. The results also support many hypothesized managerial actions associated with residual income-based performance measure incentives.

Abstract. Accounting research contains two distinct approaches to the interaction between accounting management and the independent auditor. Game theory suggests that the auditor's testing strategy will affect the manager's reporting strategy and that the two strategies form an equilibrium. The game‐theoretic approach views the auditor as active, in that the auditor acknowledges the effect that his or her testing strategy has on the manager's reporting. In contrast, in the decision‐theoretic approach, the auditor tests reports, but ignores the effect that such testing might have on the manager's reporting behavior. Essentially, the decision‐theoretic approach views the auditor as passive, taking the reporting strategy as given when designing tests. We use United Kingdom data to estimate both models and test their validity using nested hypothesis tests. Our results demonstrate that the active, game‐theoretic model better describes the auditor‐manager interaction. This is the first empirical validation of the game‐theoretic model using archival accounting data.

This paper develops a search-theoretic model of technological change to explain why both patenting and the growth of productivity have remained roughly constant while research employment in the United States has increased by a factor of six over the past four decades. In the model, researchers sample from probability distributions determining the efficiency of potential new production techniques. Technological breakthroughs, resulting in patents, become increasingly hard to find as the level of technology advances. Given certain restrictions on the search distributions, the equilibrium of the model replicates the U.S. time-series pattern of research, patenting, and productivity.