David B. Smith, An Investigation of Securities and Exchange Commission Regulation of Auditor Change Disclosures: The Case of Accounting Series Release No. 165, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 134-145

Franchising is an important and controversial form of vertical integration. Allegations of opportunistic behavior by franchisors have led to calls for public regulation and in some states "fairness in franchising" laws. The advisability of such regulation depends on the long-run incentives to franchise. If franchising is a temporary step on the path to complete ownership integration, regulation may be called for. Alternatively, if complete or partial franchising is a permanen t market solution, regulation is at least contestable. This paper offer s new evidence on the incentives to franchise

Franchising is an important and controversial form of vertical integration. Allegations of opportunistic behavior by franchisors have led to calls for public regulation and in some states "fairness in franchising" laws. The advisability of such regulation depends on the long-run incentives to franchise. This paper offers new evidence on the incentives to franchise

Researchers often restrict their sample selection to either December or non-December Compustat companies. However, no one has rigorously investigated the implications of this restriction. This paper compares financial characteristics of December and non-December year-end companies. December year-end firms are larger and have smaller betas as compared to companies with non-December year-ends. There are some strong industry concentrations in December year-ends, most notably in the regulated or recently deregulated industries. Retail sales firms have primarily non-December year-ends. A comparison of leverage ratios does not reveal a stable systematic difference between December and non-December year-end companies

[Inequity in capital markets, defined here as inequality of opportunity or the existence of systematic and significant information asymmetries across investors, leads to adverse private and social consequences: high transaction costs, thin markets, lower liquidity of securities, and in general, decreased gains from trade. Such adverse consequences of inequity can be mitigated by a public policy mandating the disclosure of financial information in order to reduce information asymmetries. The equity-orientation of disclosure regulation advanced here differs markedly from the traditional, moralistic concepts of equity in accounting, which are generally phrased in terms of maintaining fairness, eliminating fraud, and protecting the uninformed investors against exploitation by insiders. In contrast to such vague, anachronistic, and unattractive notions, the equity concept advanced here is state of the art and operational, being linked directly to recent theoretical developments in economics and finance. As such it provides an economically sound justification for disclosure regulation, and furthermore, it offers accounting policymakers an operational "public interest" criterion for disclosure choices and opens up to researchers a rich agenda for evaluating regulation consequences

Inequity in capital markets, defined here as Inequality of opportunity or the existence of systematic and significant information asymmetries across investors, leads to adverse private and social consequences: high transaction costs, thin markets, lower liquidity of securities, and in general, decreased gains from trade. Such adverse consequences of Inequity can be mitigated by a public policy mandating the disclosure of financial information in order to reduce information asymmetries. The equity-orientation of disclosure regulation advanced here differs markedly from the traditional, moralistic concepts of equity in accounting, which are generally phrased in terms of maintaining fairness, eliminating fraud, and protecting the uninformed investors against exploitation by insiders. In contrast to such vague, anachronistic, and unattractive notions, the equity concept advanced here is state of the art and operational, being linked directly to recent theoretical developments in economics and finance. As such it provides an economically sound justification for disclosure regulation, and furthermore, it offers accounting policymakers an operational "public interest" criterion for disclosure choices and opens up to researchers a rich agenda for evaluating regulation consequences

Auditing, Auditor change, Auditor change disclosure, Delayed hiring

Congressional voting on proposed floor amendments concerned solely with setting the level of the election campaign expenditure ceiling provision of the House Administration Committee's broad campaign finance reform bill of 1974 is analyzed for consistency with either the public-interest or economic theories of regulation. The benefit or cost to the individual congressman of a given ceiling is defined as the implied increase or decrease in his probability of reelection under the ceiling. Logit regression analysis provides the preponderant support for the economic theory of regulation by indicating that the likelihood of voting for a given ceiling varies directly with the implied change in reelection probability under the ceiling and is quite sensitive to the implied change

Congressional voting on proposed floor amendments concerned solely with setting the level of the election campaign expenditure ceiling provision of the House Administration Committee's broad campaign finance reform bill of 1974 is analyzed for consistency with either the public-interest or economic theories of regulation. The benefit or cost to the individual congressman of a given ceiling is defined as the implied increase or decrease in his probability of reelection under the ceiling. Logit regression analysis provides the preponderant support for the economic theory of regulation by indicating that the likelihood of voting for a given ceiling varies directly with the implied change in reelection probability under the ceiling and is quite sensitive to the implied change