Knowledge that Transforms

This paper uses a Treasury Department panel of more than 4,000 taxpayers to estimate the sensitivity of taxable income to changes in tax rates based on a comparison of the tax returns of the same individual taxpayers before and after the 1986 tax reform. The analysis emphasizes that the response of taxable income involves much more than a change in the traditional measures of labor supply. The evidence shows an elasticity of taxable income with respect to the marginal net-of-tax rate that is at least one and that could be substantially higher. The implications for recent tax rate changes are discussed.

Whether governments clash in trade disputes or negotiate over trade agreements, their actions in the international arena reflect political conditions back home. Previous studies of cooperative and noncooperative trade relations have focused on governments that are immune from political pressures and that act as benevolent servants of the public interest. Here we take a first step toward introducing domestic politics into the analysis of international economic relations. We study the interactions between national leaders who are concerned both with providing a high standard of living to the general electorate and collecting campaign contributions from special interest groups. The analysis reveals the determinants of the structure of protection in a noncooperative trade war and in a cooperative trade agreement.

"Income smoothing" is the process of manipulating the time profile of earnings or earnings reports to make the reported income stream less variable. This paper builds a theory of income smoothing based on the managers' concern about keeping their position or avoiding interference, and on the idea that current performance receives more weight than past performance when one is assessing the future. When investment is added to the model, so that income reports and dividends can be set independently, we find that both dividends and income reports may be smoothed and that dividends may convey information not present in the income report.

This paper examines the performance of auditors in generating hypotheses in an analytical review case both prior to and after review. It partitions two possible sources of gain from the review process, namely the discussion effect and the rank effect. The discussion effect compares review groups with and without discussion. The rank effect compares seniors and audit managers. The study found that the review process results in more plausible hypotheses being generated. Discussion within the review process between reviewer and reviewee was found to be one source of gain from the review process. While there was no difference in the performance of the senior and manager reviewers, managers completed the task in less time.

Examines whether the consequences arising from renegotiation of lending agreements are priced in the market. Technical default; Wealth losses from higher costs of borrowing and restrictions on firms' opportunities; Stock price declines; Debt covenant violation.

Analyzes a system of negotiated transfer pricing in which divisions can agree on a simple fixed-price contract and renegotiate this contract on arrival of better information. Provision of effective protection for their specific investments.

Evaluates alternative accrual-based models for detecting earnings management. Comparison of the specification and power of commonly used test statistics; Application of the models to a random sample of firm-years; Importance of controlling for financial performance when investigating earnings management stimuli that are correlated with financial performance.

In this article, we suggest an efficient method of approximating a general, multivariate log-normal distribution by a multivariate binomial process. There are two important features of such multivariate distributions. First, the state variables may have volatilities that change over time. Second, the two or more relevant state variables involved may covary with each other in a specified manner, with a time-varying covariance structure. We discuss the asymptotic properties of the resulting processes and show how the methodology can be used to value a complex, multiple exercisable option whose payoff depends on the prices of two assets. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.

We develop a measurement theory of market integration, based on two notions of “integrated markets”. First, two markets cannot be perfectly integrated in any sense if one can construct two portfolios, one from each market, that have identical payoffs but different prices. In that case, the law of one price is violated across the markets. Second, they cannot be integrated in a stronger sense if there are cross-market arbitrage opportunities. Two measures of market integration are developed, respectively reflecting these notions. The smaller the measures, the more closely integrated (in the respective senses) the markets. Among other things, they are interpreted as measuring pricing discrepancy between markets.

This article examines the effects of portfolio insurance on market and asset price dynamics in a general equilibrium continuous-time model. Portfolio insurers are modeled as expected utility maximizing agents. Martingale methods are employed in solving the individual agents' dynamic consumption-portfolio problems. Comparisons are made between the optimal consumption processes, optimally invested wealth and portfolio strategies of the portfolio insurers and "normal agents." At a general equilibrium level, comparisons across economies reveal that the market volatility and risk premium are decreased, and the asset and market price levels increased, by the presence of portfolio insurance. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.