Abstract ABSTRACT: This study examines firms' behavior with respect to the systematic intraday timing of earnings and dividend announcements. In particular, it tests the hypothesis that good news is more likely to be released when the security markets are open while bad news appears more frequently after the close of trading. Both endogenous (stock price change) and exogenous (comparison to the preceding period's earnings or dividends) classifications are used to distinguish good news from bad, and both forms support the "good news during, bad news after" hypothesis. An information content analysis using daily stock price data is then performed to illustrate how differences in disclosure timing may affect inferences about the magnitude of stock price response, announcement anticipation or news leakage, and the speed of price adjustment.

Abstract Reviews the book "Inflation Accounting, Capital Market Efficiency and Security Prices," by S. Basu.

Myron S. Scholes, G. Peter Wilson, Mark A. Wolfson, Firms' Responses to Anticipated Reductions in Tax Rates: The Tax Reform Act of 1986, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 30, Studies on Accounting and Taxation (1992), pp. 161-185

M. Laurentius Marais, James M. Patell, Mark A. Wolfson, The Experimental Design of Classification Models: An Application of Recursive Partitioning and Bootstrapping to Commercial Bank Loan Classifications, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 22, Studies on Current Econometric Issues in Accounting Research (1984), pp. 87-114

We test whether banks’ investment and financing policies can be explained by tax status. We document changes in bank holdings of municipal bonds in response to changes in tax rules relating to deductibility of interest expense. We also document an association between banks’ marginal tax rates and their investment and financing decisions, which is consistent with the existence of tax clienteles. However, banks do not sort themselves perfectly into investment and financing clienteles because of adjustment costs. We posit specific types of transaction-cost impediments to tax planning, and document that banks apparently trade off these costs against tax-planning benefits.

[We test whether banks' investment and financing policies can be explained by tax status. We document changes in bank holdings of municipal bonds in response to changes in tax rules relating to deductibility of interest expense. We also document an association between banks' marginal tax rates and their investment and financing decisions, which is consistent with the existence of tax clienteles. However, banks do not sort themselves perfectly into investment and financing clienteles because of adjustment costs. We posit specific types of transaction-cost impediments to tax planning, and document that banks apparently trade off these costs against tax-planning benefits.]

William H. Beaver, Mark A. Wolfson, Foreign Currency Translation and Changing Prices in Perfect and Complete Markets, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 20, No. 2, Part II (Autumn, 1982), pp. 528-550

Abstract ABSTRACT: This paper presents an agency model in which one of several monitoring systems can be chosen, if the agent possesses private information about the firm's production technology, the principal may rationally prefer to delegate the choice of the monitor to the agent even though the agent's compensation will depend on the monitoring information. In general, this expansion of the contracting space allows the principal to orchestrate more efficiently the agent's effort and monitoring system choices. The model suggests that the existence of alternative accounting methods and the delegation of their selection to management may represent rational equilibrium behavior.

Abstract General Electric uses the equity method of financial accounting for its subsidiary, General Electric Credit Corporation, but consolidates it on the tax return. This note disentangles the amounts and sources of cash payments and refunds for income taxes of the two companies, with special emphasis on the effect of tax-transfer leases. It shows how to estimate the elements of the costs and benefits of tax-transfer leasing. Through tax-transfer leases, General Electric paid its lessees about $350 million in 1981 for benefits estimated to be worth on the order of $500 million, net. These transactions contributed to GE's being able to arrange its tax affairs to receive a refund of $104 million from the U. S. Treasury, while paying over $300 million in taxes to foreign governments and $54 million to state and local governments.