This article analyzes a minimum wage in a market with imperfect information and job search. It establishes that employment effects of a minimum wage do not generally indicate welfare effects. It shows that researchers interested in welfare consequences should ask two questions. First, is the existing minimum wage binding? Second, do some firms that would be bound by a new minimum wage presently experience labor shortages? If the answers to these questions are no and yes, respectively, this article supports the conclusion that a higher minimum wage is welfare improving, regardless of its effect on the unemployment rate.

Depreciation, Market cap, Cost allocation, Investments

This article explores a Census Bureau survey of the small business sector, the 1982 Characteristics of Business Owners survey, which contains information on both small businesses and the managers running them. A number of patterns are documented. For example, among small businesses of the same age, the probability that a business fails and the probability that a business is sold are both initially decreasing in the tenure of the manager at the business. Among businesses with managers who have the same tenure at their business, the probability that a business fails is decreasing in the age of the business.

In the preceding papers, Beaver and Engel and Adiel investigate managerial discretion in the financial services industry. This comment evaluates the contribution and limitations of both papers and suggests avenues for further extensions.

Abstract. This paper adopts a valuation perspective within an asymmetric information setting and explores properties of economic income. The optimal intertemporal contract induces an accrual component of income which would not exist absent the information problem. The contracting solution introduces a dampening effect—if cash flow increases by one dollar, income increases by less than one dollar. Thus, the accrual is inversely related to cash flows. Further, this dampening is greater for more favorable cash outcomes. Résumé. Les auteurs adoptent la perspective de l'évaluation en situation d'asymétrie de l'information et explorent les propriétés du bénéfice économique. Le contrat intertemporel optimal fait intervenir une amplification du bénéfice qui n'existerait pas si ce n'était de la présence du problème d'information. La solution contractuelle amène un effet atténuateur — c'est‐à‐dire qu'à une augmentation du flux monétaire de un dollar correspond une augmentation du bénéfice de moins de un dollar. Ainsi, l'amplification est en relation inverse avec les flux monétaires. En outre, l'atténuation est plus marquée dans le cas de résultats monétaires plus avantageux.

Disclosure, Foreign registrants, Disclosure requirements, Filings

John A. Elliott, J. Douglas Hanna, Repeated Accounting Write-Offs and the Information Content of Earnings, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 34, Studies on Recognition, Measurement, and Disclosure Issues in Accounting (1996), pp. 135-155

This article begins by reviewing the main body of evidence about the effectiveness of resources devoted to schools. It then discusses some of the central implications for policy and for economic research. The implications for educational policy draw heavily on the discussion of the Panel one the Economics of Education Reform (PEER), a group of economists who met over a four-year period to discuss economic aspects of educational investments. Those recommendations are only sketched here, but are detailed in its report, Making Schools Work (Hanushek and others, 1994).