This paper derives necessary and sufficient conditions for Arrow-Debreu choices of contingent consumption to be compatibl e with the maximization of a state-independent expected utility funct ion that exhibits increasing or decreasing absolute risk aversion, or increasing or decreasing relative risk aversion. The conditions can be used to bound different measures of risk aversion based on a singl e observation of Arrow-Debreu portfolio choice.

A technique for assessing the degree of monopoly power, developed by Appelbaum (1979, 1982), is extended here to permit measurement of monopsony power as well. Data from the U.S. beef packing industry are examined. The results reveal small, but statistically significant monopoly/monopsony price distortions in slaughter cattle and wholesale beef markets but, in spite of a recent trend toward heightened concentration in the industry, give no indication that performance has become appreciably less competitive of late.

[This article develops a theory in which concentrated-trading patterns arise endogenously as a result of the strategic behavior of liquidity traders and informed traders. Our results provide a partial explanation for some of the recent empirical findings concerning the patterns of volume and price variability in intraday transaction data.]

[This study tests whether there is a positive association between a firm's agency costs and its demand for a quality-differentiated audit. Audit firm quality is represented in two ways: a continuous size model in which a direct association is posited between auditor size (measured by clients' sales) and audit quality, and a "brand name" model in which the Big Eight group of auditors is defined as higher quality suppliers. The tests are supportive of the brand name model of audit quality: agency cost proxies are significant as a group, after controlling for client size and growth, only in the brand name model. The results are also supportive (albeit weakly in some instances) of the following individual agency-related incentives for higher quality audits: monitoring of incentive performance contracts, diffusion of ownership, owner-debtholder conflict, and the subsequent issue of public securities after the auditor change. However, the explanatory power of the models tested is low, after controlling for client size and growth.]

The theory of stationary job search predicts that, controlling for other factors that affect the probability of leaving unemployment, duration and reservation wages are likely to be positively associated. The paper tests this prediction for British cross-sectional data from 1982 using an estimating equation implied by search theory. Simultaneity is crucial in the evaluation of this prediction, with single-equation and instrumental-variable estimates differing markedly. Perhaps surprisingly, given the extreme paucity of both job interviews and offers in the sample, the main finding is that reservation wages play a significant role in the determination of duration.

Available evidence suggests that state and local government pension plans may be substantially underfunded. The capitalization of these unfunded obligations in borrowing costs is an important public policy issue, since noncapitalization may lead to the misallocation of credit and stimulate the provision of an inefficiently high level of current services. Prior research has relied largely on pension ratios as surrogates for unfunded liabilities and also appears to have made no attempt to distinguish between projected benefits and accumulated benefits. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board requires the disclosure of projected benefits and asserts that accumulated benefits severely understate the obligations of a governmental unit. The empirical evidence reported in this study suggests that, for state governments, unfunded projected liabilities provide no incremental information to the bond market over and above that already provided by unfunded accumulated liabilities. Résumé. Les données existantes laissent supposer que la capitalisation des régimes publics de pensions à l'échelle de l'État et à l'échelle locale pourrait être largement insuffisante. Le financement des obligations non capitalisées à même les coûts d'emprunt est une question de politique importante, puisque la non‐capitalisation risque d'entraîner une mauvaise répartition des crédits et la fourniture d'un niveau de services actuel trop élevé. Dans les travaux de recherche précédents, l'on s'est appuyé en grande partie sur les ratios de retraite comme substituts dans le cas des dettes non capitalisées et l'on semble également n'avoir d'aucune façon tenté d'établir une distinction entre les prestations projetées et les prestations constituées. Le Governmental Accounting Standards Board exige la présentation des prestations prévues et affirme que le chiffre des prestations constituées sous‐évalue de beaucoup les obligations gouvernementales. Les résultats concrets de la présente étude donnent à penser que pour les États, la communication des dettes prévues non capitalisées ne fournit au marché obligataire aucune information supplémentaire à la communication des dettes constituées non capitalisées.

Transfer pricing, Agency theory, Uncertainty, Moral hazard