casual empiricism, invalid use of inverse probability, introduction of factors external to the theoretical system, and the use of only some of the implications of a formal model that has others that are unrealistic. . . . The basic sources of the defects in Lange's theoretical analysis are the emphasis on formal structure, the attempt to generalize without first specifying in detail the facts to be generalized, and the failure to recognize that the ultimate test of the validity of a theory is not conformity to the canons of formal logic but the ability to deduce facts that have not yet been observed, that are capable of being contradicted by observation, that subsequent observation does not contradict. In consequence, these defects are found in much economic theorizing that is not taxonomic in character. They are, however, especially likely to arise when the taxonomic approach is adopted, as their presence in the writings of saable and careful a theorist as Lange testifies. (Friedman 1946, p. 631) Shortly after the publication of the piece on Lange, Friedman received a probing letter from Edwin Bidwell Wilson. That letter, Friedman's reply, and a second letter of Wilson's are reprinted below. E. B. Wilson (1879-1964) was a scientific generalist of a type that has always been uncommon, and is becoming unknown. Wilson studied under the mathematical physicist J. Willard Gibbs, and his publication of Gibbs' notes on vector analysis and a text of his own on advanced calculus had a great impact upon education in advanced mathematics in the early part of this century. Wilson held faculty positions in mathematics at Yale and mathematics and physics at M.I.T. before he moved in 1922 from being the Chairman of Physics at M.I.T. to Harvard to be Professor of Vital Statistics in the Harvard School of Public Health, a position he held until his retirement. In 1914 he was appointed Managing Editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a post he held for fifty years, until his death. In 1929 he served as President of the American Statistical

This article employs a model of Masanori Hashimoto with extensions by Donald Parsons to analyze variation in tenure by sex, age, and firm type. Fixed-wage contracts eliminate postcontractual opportunism associated with firm-specific human capital investment. However, such contracts result in inefficient quits and terminations. Calibration of the sharing of this investment between workers and employers minimizes the costs of these inefficient separations. Moreover, this optimal sharing rate varies systematically with the characteristics listed above. These tenure-slope implications are tested with favorable results.

Because there are no market‐determined prices for IPO shares before they are sold to investors, issuers and underwriters must use nonprice information about the firm to set the offering price. Accounting‐based measures are frequently identified as particularly useful in valuing untraded securities. This paper reports evidence that IPO issuers make income‐increasing discretionary accruals in the financial statements released before the offering. This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that issuers believe that financial statement information affects IPO offering prices. Résumé. Les actions émises dans le cadre d'un premier appel, public à l'épargne n'ayant pas de prix fixé par le marché avant d'être vendues aux investisseurs, les émetteurs et les preneurs ferme doivent utiliser l'information relative à l'entreprise n'ayant pas trait au prix pour établir le prix d'émission. Les mesures d'origine comptable sont souvent considérées comme étant particulièrement utiles dans revaluation de valeurs mobilières non encore négociées. L'auteur démontre que dans les états financiers qu'elles publient avant l'émission, les entreprises qui procèdent à un premier appel public à l'épargne traitent les charges abonnées sur lesquelles elles exercent un pouvoir discrétionnaire de façon à hausser les bénéfices. Cette constatation est conforme à l'hypothèse selon laquelle les émetteurs estiment que l'information contenue dans les états financiers a une incidence sur le cours des actions émises dans le cadre d'un premier appel public à l'épargne.

Before 1986 Australian companies' unregulated foreign currency accounting practices were diverse. Firms variously recognised exchange rate gains or losses on foreign currency long‐term debt (1) as the exchange rate moved, (2) when the debt was settled, or (3) progressively over the term of the debt. This study tests empirically whether the voluntary accounting policy choices were endogenous to contractual equilibria between claimants against the firm and management. Managers' choices are explained as an efficient means to report the impact on debt and equity values from exchange rate movement effects on the value of investments in foreign currency earning assets domiciled in Australia. The study finds that asset specificity and the ratio of firms' investments in assets in place to growth options are significant in explaining the accounting policy choice. Firms used accounting methods that provided accounting exchange rate hedges concurrent with their economic exchange rate hedges of specialised assets in place. Résumé. Les méthodes de comptabilisation des opérations en devises — qui ne faisaient l'objet d'aucune réglementation— variaient dans les sociétés australiennes. Les entreprises constataient de différentes manières les gains ou les pertes de change sur les dettes à long terme libellées en devises, soit (1) à mesure que le taux de change évoluait, soit (2) lorsque la dette était réglée, soit (3) progressivement pendant la durée de la dette. L'auteur vérifie au moyen d'un test empirique si les choix volontaires de politique comptable étaient endogènes aux équilibres contractuels entre les parties par rapport à l'entreprise et à la direction. Les choix des gestionnaires sont, explique‐t‐il, un moyen efficient de faire état de l'incidence sur la valeur de la dette et des capitaux propres des effets des mouvements du taux de change sur la valeur des placements que possèdent les entreprises australiennes dans des éléments d'actif rapportant des bénéfices en monnaie étrangère. L'auteur constate que la spécificité des éléments d'actif et le rapport entre les placements en immobilisations et les options de croissance sont déterminants du choix de politique comptable. Les entreprises, observe‐t‐il, utilisaient des méthodes comptables offrant une couverture comptable des taux de change concurremment à la couverture économique des éléments d'actif spécialisés qu'elles possédaient.

This paper investigates circumstances under which accruals are predicted to improve earnings' ability to measure firm performance, as reflected in stock returns. The importance of accruals is hypothesized to increase (i) the shorter the performance measurement interval, (ii) the greater the volatility of the firm's working capital requirements and investment and financing activities, and (iii) the longer the firm's operating cycle. Under each of these circumstances, cash flows are predicted to suffer more severely from timing and matching problems that reduce their ability to reflect firm performance. The results of empirical tests are consistent with these predictions.

This paper examines asset sales by financially distressed firms. Contrary to the results for healthy firms, we find significantly lower returns to shareholders when asset sales proceeds are used to repay debt than when sales proceeds are retained by the firm. We find that asset sales proceeds are more likely to be paid out to creditors, as opposed to being retained by the firm, the larger the proportion of short-term senior bank debt in the firm's capital structure and the poorer the selling firm's investment opportunities. Our results suggest that creditors significantly influence the liquidation decisions of financially distressed firms.

[I present a methodology that uses the mixed jump-diffusion model for stock returns to estimate the separate effects of information surprises and strategic trading around corporate events. Using simulation techniques, I show that for events with multiple announcements spread over a long time, the estimators derived from the mixed jump-diffusion model are more powerful compared to the traditional cumulative abnormal return estimators. The new methodology is used to study the separate effects of information surprises and strategic trading associated with blockholdings and subsequent targeted repurchases. I find that for more than 93 percent of the firms in our sample the mixed jump-diffusion model is statistically superior to the pure diffusion model in describing stock returns. More important, I find a statistically significant negative effect due to trading, while the average effect around announcements is statistically insignificant. In contrast, the standard cumulative abnormal return is not statistically different from zero.]

In the model of monopolistic competition on the circle, a product is identified by a single locational characteristic representing its brand or variety. The ability of a variety to compete with other varieties a given distance away (its specialization as quantified by transportation losses) is exogenously given in the standard model. Here, specialization is a choice variable selected by the firm. An equilibrium is derived, where the degree of specialization is endogenously determined. The effect of endogenizing specialization makes the Hotelling-Lancaster-Chamberlin model of monopolistic competition isomorphic to the Dixit-Stiglitz-Ethier formulation, without sacrificing the appealing concept of product 'distance.' Copyright 1994 by The Review of Economic Studies Limited.

Managers typically increase their voting power following the creation of two classes of common stock and the adoption of an employee stock ownership plan. These changes can worsen managers' incentives and lead to a decline in performance. Alternatively, two classes of stock and ESOPs can allow managers to adopt value-maximizing policies that would not be possible in the face of takeover pressure. We find that these events are followed by below normal operating income. However, we find no reliable evidence that the increase in managers' voting power and the resulting divergence between managers' voting power and ownership of equity claims is related to subsequent operating performance.

[This paper shows that S&P 500 stock betas are overstated and the non-S&P 500 stock betas are understated because of liquidity price effects caused by the S&P 500 trading strategies. The daily and weekly betas of stocks added to the S&P 500 index during 1985-1989 increase, on average, by 0.211 and 0.130. The difference between monthly betas of otherwise similar S&P 500 and non-S&P 500 stocks also equals 0.125 during this period. Some of these increases can be explained by the reduced nonsynchroneity of S&P 500 stock prices, but the remaining increases are explained by the price pressure or excess volatility caused by the S&P 500 trading strategies. I estimate that the price pressures account for 8.5 percent of the total variance of daily returns of a value-weighted portfolio of NYSE/AMEX stocks. The negative own autocorrelations in S&P 500 index returns and the negative cross autocorrelations between S&P 500 stock returns provide further evidence consistent with the price pressure hypothesis.]