Richard P. Castanias, A Test of the OPEC Cartel Hypothesis, 1974-1983: 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. 1006-1008

ABSTRACT Of late, concern has been expressed that American managers tend to make decisions that yield short‐term gains at the expense of the long‐term interests of the shareholders. In this paper, we have attempted to investigate managerial incentives for such decisions. We find that, when the manager has private information regarding his or her decisions, there exist situations wherein the manager has incentives to make decisions which yield short‐term profits but are not in the stockholders best interests. This incentive for suboptimal decisions arises because the manager, by taking decisions yielding short‐term profits, hopes to enhance his reputation earlier, thus boosting his wages. We also find that this incentive is inversely related to her experience, the duration of her contract, and the risk of the firm.

Assumptions serve as the basis from which we reason and therefore pervasively influence the nature of our understanding of any substantive area. Auditing is no exception. Yet, the core assumptions that underlie auditing thought have largely been left unexamined. The purpose of this paper is to examine the core ontological assumptions, (assumptions as to the primitive elements of what constitutes reality), and epistemological assumptions, (assumptions as to how knowledge is attained), that underlie contemporary auditing thought. It is concluded: 1) that auditing is characterized by an overwhelming domination of a functionalist paradigm, which views reality as concrete and objective (rather than uncertain and subjective) and which emphasizes a regularized, patterned existence (rather than one characterized by intrinsic tension and contradiction); and 2) that this paradigm ultimately influences and constrains our understanding of auditing. Alternative paradigms are used to examine the concepts of audit evidence and auditor consensus to dramatize the effects of making alternative assumptions of reality. Implications for practitioners and for researchers are also explored. Résumé. Les hypothèses servent de fondement à nos raisonnements et par conséquent, influencent l'essence de notre compréhension de tout domaine. La vérification n'est pas une exception et les hypothèses essentielles qui sous‐tendent la pensée en vérification, n'ont pas vraiment été examinées. L'objectif de cet article est d'examiner les hypothèses essentielles ontologiques (hypothèses concernant les éléments primitifs de ce qui constitue la réalité) et les hypothèses épistémologiques (hypothèses relatives au comment de l'atteinte de la connaissance) qui sous‐tendent la pensée contemporaine en vérification. On y conclut: 1) que la vérification est caractérisée par une domination écrasante d'un paradigme fonctionnel qui voit la réalité comme étant concrète et objective (plutôt qu'incertaine et subjective) et qui met l'emphase sur une existence régularisée et modelée (plutôt qu'une existence caractérisée par la contradiction et une tension intrinsèque); et 2) que ce paradigme influence et contraint ultimement notre compréhension de la vérification. Des paradigmes alternatifs sont utilisés pour examiner les concepts d'information probante et de consensus du vérificateur afin de dramatiser les effets d'utiliser des hypothèses alternatives de la réalité. Les implications pour les practiciens et les chercheurs sont également considérées.

[This paper studies the limits of contracting as a method for achieving efficient allocation, with particular attention to how informational asymmetries interact with the timing of commitment to a mechanism. There are arguments to suggest, in the spirit of the Coase "Theorem," that if agents can agree on a mechanism before observing their private information (or, a fortiori, if information is perfect or symmetric), they can realize an incentive-efficient allocation. If, however, agents observe their private information before contracting, there may be further restrictions, due to information leakage during the process of bargaining over mechanisms, on what they can achieve by contract. These restrictions are characterized and compared to those proposed for this setting by Holmstrom and Myerson [6]. It is also shown that there is at least one specification of the rules that govern mechanism design that makes it possible for agents to achieve, contracting after they observe their private information, the same incentive-efficient allocations that are attainable when they can commit themselves to a mechanism before observing their private information.]

[A general problem faced by both private firms and public enterprises is how to allocate the costs of common facilities fairly among the different goods and services produced. Any such cost accounting method can create incentives among product managers within the firm for altering the production function to their advantage. It is therefore both reasonable and desirable that a method reward increased efficientl by attributing lower unit costs to products whose marginal cost of production uniformly decreases. It is shown that there is only one "symmetric" method that satisfies this "monotonicity" principle--namely, the Aumann-Shapley price mechanism based on the Aumann-Shapley value for nonatomic games. This provides a new and simple axiomatization of this method without resorting to the usual assumption of additivity.]

This paper examines the effect of learning curve spillovers on market structure and performance. We derive a simple characterization of the “true” marginal cost for a broad class of learning curves, and use calculated examples to show that spillovers substantially undercut the barriers to entry erected by proprietary learning. Unlike the case of cost-reducing research and development, spillovers also tend to improve market performance; the increased efficiency of the industrywide reduction process typically outweighs the decrease in firms' incentives to reduce costs by expanding output.

Miller and Scholes (1978) hypothesize that the marginal tax rate on dividend income may be less than the marginal rate of tax on capital gains. Their hypothesis is dependent upon individuals utilizing existing provisions of the Code which serve to reduce the taxation of dividends. In this study, estimates of the marginal and effective rates of tax on dividend income for the year 1979 are presented using the Statistics of Income sample of returns. The average marginal rate of tax on dividend income is estimated to be 40%, while the average effective rate of tax is estimated to be 30%.

This paper examines the welfare economics of producer behavior under risk aversion. Hicksian, Marshallian, and money equivalent measures are explored. It is found that under decreasing absolute risk aversion, compensating variation is less than the ordinary Marshallian surplus, which is less than the money equivalent measure. Under constant absolute risk aversion all measures coincide. Finally, bounds on compensating and equivalent variations using ordinary producer surplus in a manner analogous to Willige approach in consumer theory under certainty are studied. Similar results hold, mutatis mutandis, for input demands.