We examine whether auditor scrutiny over the allowance for loan losses (ALL) is associated with bank lending decisions. Using PCAOB inspection findings over the ALL to capture increases in auditor scrutiny, we find that auditor scrutiny is associated with a larger ALL for homogeneous loans (i.e., residential mortgages and consumer loans) but not for heterogeneous loans (i.e., commercial real estate; commercial and industrial loans). We next find that auditor scrutiny is associated with a shift in lending away from homogeneous loans, consistent with auditor scrutiny reducing the relative attractiveness of homogeneous loans. These findings suggest that policymakers and audit regulators can indirectly affect bank lending by exercising their authority in ways that affect auditor scrutiny. Data Availability: All data are publicly available from the sources discussed in the paper.

In this study, we investigate whether managerial ability is related to income smoothing and, if so, whether smoothing associated with managerial ability improves the informativeness of earnings and stock prices about future performance. Using a large sample of firms, we find that managerial ability is positively related to smoothing. More importantly, we show that high-ability managers incorporate more forward-looking information about cash flows into current earnings through smoothing, thereby enhancing earnings informativeness. We also find that smoothing associated with high-ability managers improves stock price informativeness about future cash flows. Our study should be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and others concerned with understanding the determinants and usefulness of smoothing.

This paper examines cross-sectional differences in the optimistic behavior of financial analysts. Specifically, we investigate whether the predictive accuracy of past information (e.g., time-series of earnings, past returns, etc.) is associated with the magnitude of the bias in analysts' earnings fore- casts. We posit that there is higher demand for non-public information for firms whose earnings are difficult to accurately predict than for firms whose earnings can be accurately forecasted using public information. Assuming that optimism facilitates access to management's non-public information, we hypothesize that analysts will issue more optimistic forecasts for low predictability firms than for high predictability firms. Our results support this hypothesis.

When a student enrolls in one of our classes we feel, as we are sure you do if you are a teacher, that we have an obligation to give him everything, accounting- wise, that one can during the time in which he is with others. In fact we feel that this obligation or responsibility encompasses not only the student but also his parents, the accounting department, the university, the state and last but not least the accounting profession. People feel sure that in many instances the use of visual aids helps in fulfilling this obligation. Not only are such aids frequently time-saving in the presentation of a given amount of information, but also they often permit one to present a greater quantity of information and, at the same time, more up-to-date information. Transparency projection, although one of the newest types of projection, is, in many instances, rapidly becoming one of the most popular. This type of projection, which is basically the same as that frequently used in bowling alleys whereby scores are grease-pencilled on transparent sheets and projected upon a screen, often provides an instructor with many opportunities for imparting more information in less time.

We investigate the link between poverty and decision-making in a sample of farmers in Zambia, who were given the opportunity to exchange randomly assigned household items for alternative items of similar value. Analyzing a total of 5,842 trading decisions and leveraging multiple sources of variation in financial constraints, we show that exchange asymmetries decrease in magnitude when participants are more constrained. This result is robust to experimental procedures and is not mediated by changes in cognitive performance. Consistent with the interpretation that scarcity leads to more rational decisions by increasing the utility loss from forgone trading, we show that trading probabilities go up when the market value of the items is exogenously increased.

We develop a model of selection that incorporates a key element of recent health reforms: an individual mandate. Using data from Massachusetts, we estimate the parameters of the model. In the individual market for health insurance, we find that premiums and average costs decreased significantly in response to the individual mandate. We find an annual welfare gain of 4.1% per person or $51.1 million annually in Massachusetts as a result of the reduction in adverse selection. We also find smaller post-reform markups.

We implement an empirical test for selection into health insurance using changes in coverage induced by the introduction of mandated health insurance in Massachusetts. Our test examines changes in the cost of the newly insured relative to those who were insured prior to the reform. We find that counties with larger increases in insurance coverage over the reform period face the smallest increase in average hospital costs for the insured population, consistent with adverse selection into insurance before the reform. Additional results, incorporating cross-state variation and data on health measures, provide further evidence for adverse selection.

We examine changes in subjective probabilities regarding retirement between the 2006 and 2008 waves of the Health and Retirement Study. Using a first-difference approach to eliminate individual heterogeneity, we find that the steep drop in asset prices in 2008 increased the reported probability of working at age 62 during the Great Recession. Increasing unemployment at least partly attenuated this effect, but subjective probabilities of working did not respond to changes in housing markets. Older workers' probabilities of working were more sensitive to fluctuations in the stock market, but less responsive to changes in labor market conditions.

Labor supply theory predicts systematic heterogeneity in the impact of recent welfare reforms on earnings, transfers, and income. Yet most welfare reform research focuses on mean impacts. We investigate the importance of heterogeneity using random-assignment data from Connecticut's Jobs First waiver, which features key elements of post-1996 welfare programs. Estimated quantile treatment effects exhibit the substantial heterogeneity predicted by labor supply theory. Thus mean impacts miss a great deal. Looking separately at samples of dropouts and other women does not improve the performance of mean impacts. We conclude that welfare reform's effects are likely both more varied and more extensive than has been recognized.