This paper develops a simple general equilibrium model of a monetary economy with a capital market. Money demand arises from a “cash-in-advance” constraint rather than from any direct role in the utility function, and uncertainty gives rise to a meaningful portfolio choice between money and bonds. We show that velocity is increasing in the rate of inflation, and that the optimal monetary policy is that which maximizes real balances. We also show that the real rate of interest is not invariant to monetary, policy: inflation lowers the real rate.

Standard financial theory (in the absence of agency costs and personal taxes) implies that each dollar of debt contributes to the value of the firm in proportion to the firm's tax rate. To derive this result, incremental debt is assumed permanent. This paper shows that when the firm acts to maintain a constant market value leverage ratio, the marginal value of debt financing is much lower than the corporate tax rate. Since Hamada's [2] unlevering procedure for observed equity betas was derived under the assumption of permanent debt, we derive an unlevering procedure consistent with the assumption of a constant leverage ratio.

We show that the set of expected return vectors, for which an observed portfolio is mean variance (MV) efficient, is a two-parameter family. We identify ten ways to specify the time series behavior of the two parameters; the result highlights a number of inconsistencies involved in MV modelling. For each of the cases, it permits the inference of the time series of expected return vectors, as well as all the other Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) variables, compatible with a known covariance matrix and the observed time series of market value weights. The empirical work shows that there are substantial case-to-case differences in the time series of mean vectors and many of them are quite different from the constant mean vector envisioned in tests of the CAPM.

We show that the set of expected return vectors, for which an observed portfolio is mean variance (MV) efficient, is a two‐parameter family. We identify ten ways to specify the time series behavior of the two parameters; the result highlights a number of inconsistencies involved in MV modelling. For each of the cases, it permits the inference of the time series of expected return vectors, as well as all the other Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) variables, compatible with a known covariance matrix and the observed time series of market value weights. The empirical work shows that there are substantial case‐to‐case differences in the time series of mean vectors and many of them are quite different from the constant mean vector envisioned in tests of the CAPM.

This note extends the analysis of line-item error taints and error rates originally presented in Johnson, Leitch and Neter [1981] by first considering the distribution of dollar-unit taints, the relevant distribution when simple random sampling is applied to monetary units. Next, empirical evidence on the relation between the taint amount and book amount is presented. Finally, empirical findings on the magnitudes of dollar-unit error rates are provided.

[This note extends the analysis of line-item error taints and error rates originally presented in Johnson, Leitch and Neter [1981] by first considering the distribution of dollar-unit taints, the relevant distribution when simple random sampling is applied to monetary units. Next, empirical evidence on the relation between the taint amount and book amount is presented. Finally, empirical findings on the magnitudes of dollar-unit error rates are provided.]