The demand for capital is not systematically related to either the level or the rate of change of "effective" income tax rates on corporate capital assets. Rising inflation during the last 10 years has raised the user cost of capital for durable assets relative to that for short-lived assets even though this inflation has raised effective tax rates for more durable capital less than for short-lived assets. Even with replacement-cost depreciation allowances, the level and pattern of investment incentives probably will continue to vary with the inflation rate.

Why do bookies use the point-spread device for wagering on football games when odds betting on the winner is also feasible? One possibility is that point-spread betting is more fun than odds betting. The existence of point spreads, however, does not logically entail this "more fun" explanation. Given simple specifications of beliefs and betting behavior, and given that point spreads and odds are equally thrilling, it is demonstrated that the point-spread game can exist as the game produced by a profit-maximizing bookie. The disparate beliefs which create the demand for some form of betting market can also explain the particular betting game produced by the bookie.

This paper examines the market for human capital created by the institution of indentured servitude in colonial America. The indenture system allowed English emigrants to obtain passage to the colonies by selling claims on their future labor. With the size of the debt approximately equal for all emigrants, the length of the term for which a servant was bound is predicted to have varied inversely with expected productivity in the colonies. Analysis of two collections of contracts made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries supports the prediction. Age, skill, and literacy were negatively related to length of indenture. Women received shorter terms than men at young ages, while servants bound for the West Indies and those bound in periods of high colonial demand for labor also received reductions.

This paper examines the market for human capital created by the institution of indentured servitude in colonial America. The indenture system allowed English emigrants to obtain passage to the colonies by selling claims on their future labor. With the size of the debt approximately equal for all emigrants, the length of the term for which a servant was bound is predicted to have varied inversely with expected productivity in the colonies. Analysis of two collections of contracts made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries supports the prediction. Age, skill, and literacy were negatively related to length of indenture. Women received shorter terms than men at young ages, while servants bound for the West Indies and those bound in periods of high colonial demand for labor also received reductions.

The demand for capital is not systematically related to either the level or the rate of change of "effective" income tax rates on corporate capital assets. Rising inflation during the last 10 years has raised the user cost of capital for durable assets relative to that for short-lived assets even though this inflation has raised effective tax rates for more durable capital less than for short-lived assets. Even with replacement-cost depreciation allowances, the level and pattern of investment incentives probably will continue to vary with the inflation rate.

Why do bookies use the point-spread device for wagering on football games when odds betting on the winner is also feasible? One possibility is that point-spread betting is more fun than odds betting. The existence of point spreads, however, does not logically entail this "more fun" explanation. Given simple specifications of beliefs and betting behavior, and given that point spreads and odds are equally thrilling, it is demonstrated that the point-spread game can exist as the game produced by a profit-maximizing bookie. The disparate beliefs which create the demand for some form of betting market can also explain the particular betting game produced by the bookie.

and where tl, 2, ... , n-k is a set of independent standard normal variates. The significance points of dM, dL, and du may be evaluated by the methods of Imhof [3] and Pan [8]. Savin and White [9] have noted that Koerts and Abrahamse's [5, pp. 159-160] FORTRAN implementation of Imhof's procedure fails to converge when the significance point is near A1. This defect is easily remedied by replacing Imhof's lower bound for the inverse of the truncation error by

This paper analyzes a general equilibrium model of a competitive security market in which traders possess independent pieces of information about the return of a risky asset. Each trader conditions his estimate of the return both on his own private source of information and price, which in equilibrium serves as a ‘noisy’ aggregator of the total information observed by all traders. A closed-form characterization of the rational expectations equilibrium is presented. A counter-example to the existence of ‘fully revealing’ equilibrium is developed.

Abstract ABSTRACT: This study is both a replication and an extension of prior work on auditor concentration in specific industries. By expanding the client population sevenfold, more comprehensive measurement of concentration is obtained than was possible in previous research. Prior studies' conclusions concerning the variability of auditor concentration across industries are supported, but the levels of concentration appear to be lower when a surrogate for audit fees is employed as the measure of CPA-firm activity levels. An important finding is that concentration measures are quite sensitive to the CPA-firm activity measure employed. A model is posited for explaining the level of auditor concentration in any given industry. The model states that auditor concentration is a positive function of the degree of client-industry regulation and capital market activity. Tests of this model across 54 industries indicate statistically significant positive associations between the two proposed explanatory variables, and the level of CPA-firm concentration.

Perception of Accuracy, Information value, Information systems, Decision making