Suddenly, and somewhat unexpectedly, there seems to be a real chance for change in the way economics is taught in American colleges and universities. During the last two years, three different groups have taken a critical look at economics education and declared that change is in order. The Association of American Colleges (AAC), in conjunction with the American Economic Association (AEA), commissioned a study of the undergraduate economics major which has led to a report with several recommendations for reform (John Siegfried et al. 1991); in response to a National Science Foundation (NSF) symposium that revealed concern over the state of graduate education, the AEA formed the Commission

Valuation, Price-Earnings Ratio, Industry comparison, Comparable company analysis

Thomas W. Downs, Keith A. Shriver, The Analytical Derivation and Empirical Test of a Tax-Adjusted Fundamental Value Model, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 30, Studies on Accounting and Taxation (1992), pp. 77-98

Workers in a long-term relationship often have an incentive to hide their ability early in the relationship to avoid having the firm increase the level of output expected from them in the future. We show that competition for older workers will permit the implementation of efficient piece-rate contracts. When the difficulty of the job is unobserved by the firm, Gibbons (1987) has shown that all piece-rate contracts will be inefficient. Together, these results may explain why piece rates are common in some jobs, such as agricultural work and sales, and not as popular for many manufacturing jobs.

This study seeks to identify economic and financial characteristics that distinguish three groups of companies classified by response to the U.K.'s mandatory CCA standard (SSAP 16) as loyal compliers, early defectors and hard-line noncompliers. Three major explanatory variables emerge – leverage, firm size, and the fixed assets to total assets ratio. Overall results suggest that a major motivation for compliance was lower income reporting, especially as an argument for continuing recognition of CCA for tax and regulatory purposes. The belief that noncompliance was largely motivated by preparation costs is discounted.

We examine the profitability of a trading strategy which is based on a logit model designed to predict the sign of subsequent twelve-month excess returns from accounting ratios. Over the 1978–1988 period, the average annual excess return produced by the trading strategy ranges between 4.3% and 9.5%, depending on the specific measure of excess return and weighting scheme involved. However, our implementation of the Ou and Penman (1989) trading strategy in the 1978–1988 period, which is based on a logit model that predicts subsequent unexpected earnings- per-share from accounting ratios, does not earn excess returns.

Ralph W. Sanders, Jr., John S. Zdanowicz, Target Firm Abnormal Returns and Trading Volume Around the Initiation of Change in Control Transactions, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 109-129