In a recent paper in this Journal, Gaumnitz et al. [1982] provided evidence on the consensus of auditors' judgments which seemed to reconcile conflicting results reported in Ashton [1974] and Joyce [1976]. In their study Gaumnitz et al. [1982] combined judgment tasks of evaluating internal control and recommending the number of audit hours needed to assess the propriety and collectibility of accounts receivable. They reported mean correlations of 0.704 and 0.617 for internal control and audit planning judgments, respectively. The former was consistent with Ashton [1974] and the latter was higher than observed by Joyce [1976], who reported a mean correlation of only .373 for audit hour of an accounts receivable subsystem. Gaumnitz et al. suggested that by linking the two judgment tasks they reinforced the link between internal control and planned number of audit hours. Specifically, they stated: link is provided by the auditor's knowledge that an inverse relationship should exist between the strength of internal control and the number of audit hours planned. Thus, the requirement to provide an explicit judgment on the strength of internal control enabled our subjects to operationalize this inverse relationship, resulting in a high correlation (relative to Joyce's findings) among audit hour estimates [1982, pp. 753]. This explanation appears plausible given the results of previous audit judgment research. That is, high levels of consensus have been found for

Does media bias affect voting? We analyze the entry of Fox News in cable markets and its impact on voting. Between October 1996 and November 2000, the conservative Fox News Channel was introduced in the cable programming of 20 percent of U. S. towns. Fox News availability in 2000 appears to be largely idiosyncratic, conditional on a set of controls. Using a data set of voting data for 9,256 towns, we investigate if Republicans gained vote share in towns where Fox News entered the cable market by the year 2000. We find a significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. Republicans gained 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points in the towns that broadcast Fox News. Fox News also affected voter turnout and the Republican vote share in the Senate. Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 28 percent of its viewers to vote Republican, depending on the audience measure. The Fox News effect could be a temporary learning effect for rational voters, or a permanent effect for nonrational voters subject to persuasion.

We investigate whether the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) impacts labor investment efficiency. By lowering the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, ceteris paribus, the TCJA provides firms with a cash windfall. Based on difference-in-differences analysis using non-US based firms as a control group, we find that in the post-TCJA years, labor investment inefficiency increased for US based, but not for non-US based, firms. Further, the increase in labor investment inefficiency is concentrated among US firms with high cash holdings, suggesting that these firms face higher agency costs in the post-TCJA period. Additional analysis suggests that in the post-TCJA period, managers of high cash holding firms were seeking a quiet life. We find weak evidence that strong corporate governance mitigated this negative behavior. Overall, our findings show that tax reform can impact labor investment efficiency and should be of interest to investors, boards of directors, tax authorities, and to researchers.

[Decisions about a subordinate's behavior are among the most important control problems facing audit managers and partners. Green and Mitchell [1979] apply attribution theory to examine supervisors' decisions made following a subordinate's behavior. Green and Mitchell argue that an individual's causal attributions regarding a subordinate's behavior serve as mediators between the behavior of the subordinate and the action responses of the evaluator. This paper reports the results of a study that examines the attribution judgments and responses made by auditors following an incidence of an audit senior's poor performance. Employee work history and client history each significantly affect the attribution judgments made by auditors. Also, the attribution judgments were associated significantly with the recommended responses of auditors. Additional analyses showed that the association was higher for internal attributions and responses than for external attributions and responses.]

We estimate the impact of coups and top-secret coup authorizations on asset prices of partially nationalized multinational companies that stood to benefit from U.S.-backed coups. Stock returns of highly exposed firms reacted to coup authorizations classified as top-secret. The average cumulative abnormal return to a coup authorization was 9% over 4 days for a fully nationalized company, rising to more than 13% over 16 days. Precoup authorizations accounted for a larger share of stock price increases than the actual coup events themselves. There is no effect in the case of the widely publicized, poorly executed Cuban operations, consistent with abnormal returns to coup authorizations reflecting credible private information. We also introduce two new intuitive and easy to implement nonparametric tests that do not rely on asymptotic justifications.

Decisions about a subordinate's behavior are among the most important control problems facing audit managers and partners. Green and Mitchell [1979] apply attribution theory to examine supervisors' decisions made following a subordinate's behavior. Green and Mitchell argue that an individual's causal attributions regarding a subordinate's behavior serve as mediators between the behavior of the subordinate and the action responses of the evaluator. This paper reports the results of a study that examines the attribution judgments and responses made by auditors following an incidence of an audit senior's poor performance. Employee work history and client history each significantly affect the attribution judgments made by auditors. Also, the attribution judgments were associated significantly with the recommended responses of auditors. Additional analyses showed that the association was higher for internal attributions and responses than for external attributions and responses.