Abstract The article focuses on accounting changes brought about by the Revenue Act of 1954. Though the general rule for accounting methods under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as set forth in section 446, is substantially the same as the general rule under the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, there are a number of specific types of accounting problems which are singled out for special treatment in the new Code. For the most part, these special provisions represent an effort on the part of the lawmakers to bring tax accounting into closer accord with generally accepted accounting principles. Under the various revenue acts prior to 1939 and under the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, there were many differences between the accounting for certain transactions for tax purposes and for commercial purposes. Some of the major differences could be explained on the grounds of public policy, as in the case of the peculiar treatment of capital gains and losses and in the allowance of percentage depletion, to name only two. Others could be said to result from the necessity of determining taxable net income rather than business net income, as in the case of the allowances for expenses of a purely personal nature and the credits for personal exemptions.

New indicators, based on technology titles, are used to measure the impact of innovative activity on the U.S. labor market between 1909 and 1949. We find that positive technology shocks raised productivity, employment, vacancies, and labor turnover and lowered unemployment and business failures. Moreover, automotive and electrical innovations (quintessential general-purpose technologies) had a greater positive impact on employment than those in mechanical innovations. The overall results, compatible with the predictions of the real business cycle model, raise questions about the anemic recovery in employment after 1934 since the strong upsurge in technical change failed to be accompanied by vigorous job expansion.

This paper offers a framework for forecasting aggregate sales of new motor vehicles; this framework incorporates separate models for the change in the vehicle stock and for the rate of vehicle scrappage. Because this approach requires only a minimal set of assumptions about demographic trends, the state of the economy, consumer “preferences,” new vehicle prices and repair costs, and vehicle retirements, it is shown to be especially useful as a macroeconomic forecasting tool. In addition, this paper presents a new historical annual time-series estimate of motor vehicle stocks in the United States.

This paper investigates empirically how the value of publicly traded firms is affected by arrangements that protect management from removal. Staggered boards, which a majority of U.S. public companies have, substantially insulate boards from removal in either a hostile takeover or a proxy contest. We find that staggered boards are associated with an economically meaningful reduction in firm value (as measured by Tobin's Q). We also provide suggestive evidence that staggered boards bring about, and not merely reflect, a reduced firm value. Finally, we show that the correlation with reduced firm value is stronger for staggered boards that are established in the corporate charter (which shareholders cannot amend) than for staggered boards established in the company's bylaws (which shareholders can amend).

Research joint ventures (RJV's) between private firms and government bureaus play a central position in the Clinton Administration's R&D strategy to promote productivity and of American firms. The government's role in the programs varies from subsidizing private projects to providing the expertise and facilities of the federal research laboratories. A substantial literature now exists that investigates the economic efficiency of private RJV's. The purpose of this paper is to expand the debate to consider the conditions under which the government will choose to subsidize RJV's and whether these conditions are likely to yield desirable economic results. It is useful to characterize the government as a consortium member who differs from the private venturers in several critical ways. First, these programs are based on the presumption that private firms are far better than government at choosing projects with commercial merit. Even in those programs where the government contributes scientists and facilities, industry partners usually have primary responsibility for initiating projects. Second, the objective function of the government differs from industry members. Indeed, it is in part because government actors have goals other than competitiveness that these programs are intended to keep government bureaucrats at arm's length from technical choices. Finally, the financial contribution of the government is usually a set share of the total bill. Introducing this form of subsidy changes the research investment strategies employed by a joint venture, and the incentives facing firms either to participate in a consortium or to oppose its establishment. The basic premise of this analysis is that a subsidized joint venture will persist only when all members, including the government, are satisfied. A viable policy depends on economic consequences to member firms, and to the extent that they have access to policy-making, to nonmember firms and consumers. Furthermore, some of the relevant consequences follow predictably from market and technology characteristics.

This paper analyzes the workings and potentials of French planning as a prototype model of modern capitalist planning. Its principal concern is methodological. How can we analyze, categorize, compare, and criticize planning processes? The French planning process is not a streamlined design of smoothly fitting parts. Its formal structure tells little about its functional structure. Its explicit targets do not define its operational role. The plan is a collection of activities which have never been integrated into a single, coherent process. That is perhaps why there has been so much confusion about the way it operates; it operates in several ways at once. The French plan has two principal components. Each is a complex system possessing a powerful logic of its own. Each is based on a different planning model and each model implies a radically different conception of the political function of planning. Each pulls the plan in a different direction. The first component is a complex institution of daily, pragmatic state intervention in the activities of the major industries. The second is a formally coherent set of output targets-the general resource allocation plan.

Kalman J. Cohen, Risk Aversion and Information Structure: An Experimental Study of Price Variability in the Securities Markets: Discussion, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 40, No. 3, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-Third Annual Meeting American Finance Association, Dallas, Texas, December 28-30, 1984 (Jul., 1985), pp. 845-846