ABSTRACT This paper investigates the role of stock options in resolving the agency problems of external capital as originally identified by Jensen and Meckling (1976). These problems are precipitated by managerial incentives a) to consume excessive non‐pecuniary benefits or perquisites beyond the optimal level for sole ownership and b) to engage in risk shifting in productive decisions so as to transfer wealth from external capital contributors. These incentive problems can be resolved through a strategy that judiciously combines call and put options retained by the owner‐manager and external financiers, respectively. The resolution of the agency problems through this mechanism provides an economic rationale for the existence of managerial stock options and convertible debt.

James G. Beierlein, James W. Dunn, James C. McConnon, Jr., The Demand for Electricity and Natural Gas in the Northeastern United States, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Aug., 1981), pp. 403-408

ECONOMISTS and statisticians who construct estimates of total factor productivity or who estimate production functions or systems of consumer demand functions are often forced to aggregate subsets of their data. In order to perform this aggregation, an index number formula is generally used. A price index P(pO, pl, x?, xI) is defined to be a function P of the prices of the N commodities to be aggregated in periods 0 and 1,p?-(pll, . . . , PNO) and pl (pl,.'.. PN'), respectively, and of the corresponding quantities utilized during periods 0 and 1, x? (xi?, . . .,XNO) andX1 _ (xi', . . .,XN1), respectively. A quantity index Q(p0, pl, x?, xl) is defined to be another function Q of the price and quantity vectors for the two periods. Generally, we assume that P and Q satisfy Fisher's (1922) weak factor reversal test:

ABSTRACT: For many quarterly time series of corporate earnings per share, the data indicate the desirability of incorporating a power transformation into the time series model. Our empirical results suggest that, for such series, this will generally lead to forecasts of improved quality. The resulting forecasts compare more favorably with those of financial analysts than do forecasts derived from models without the transformation parameter.