Secondary markets with changing preferences

If consumer valuations change over time, then secondary‐market frictions may raise monopoly profits and cause durability to be distorted away from the cost‐minimizing level. A monopolist who favors such frictions overinvests in durability, but planned obsolescence instead may be preferred when market frictions exist but a monopolist wishes they did not. Evidence from the book market is presented.     

First‐price auctions with resale and with outcomes robust to bid disclosure

Although there exists a pure separating equilibrium of the two‐bidder first‐price auction with resale when the bids are kept secret, the ratchet effect prevents the existence of such an equilibrium if the bidders are heterogeneous and the bids are fully disclosed. Nevertheless, we construct a behavioral equilibrium under full disclosure that is equivalent to the pure separating equilibrium under no disclosure. Thus, if the bidders follow this equilibrium, the choice of the disclosure regime does not affect the final allocation of the item nor the expected payoffs.     

Accounting manipulations and political costs: Tooth & Co Ltd, 1910–1965

Positive accounting theory posits that political costs influence accounting choices by large firms. Most studies rely on cross‐sectional analyses of large samples using coarse data. We employ rich archival data to analyse the profit measurement and disclosure practices of Tooth & Co, a large Australian brewing company, from 1910 to 1965. This period provides considerable variation in scope and incentives to manipulate reported profit. Reporting discretion changed significantly from early voluntary disclosure through to the extensive scheduled disclosure requirements of the Companies Act 1961. Varying incentives include changes in excise duties levied on beer production, and dramatic company growth and market dominance resulting from takeovers of competitors and vertical integration. We examine the pattern of reported profit in relation to internal records and the pattern of accruals. We find that Tooth's profit‐smoothing practices and understatements were perceived by management as important in justifying dividend policy, while systematic understatements of reported profit were used to avoid potential political costs associated with high profitability and market dominance. The most significant relative increases in profit understatement are shown to occur where dividend policy and political cost motivations coincide.     

Free ad(vice): internet influencers and disclosure regulation

Consumers rely on intermediaries (“influencers”) such as social media recommendations to provide information about products. The advice may be mixed with endorsement in a way that is unobservable to the follower, creating a trade‐off for influencers between the best advice and the most revenue. This article models the dynamic relationship between an influencer and a follower. The relationship evolves between periods of less and more revenue. The model can provide insight into policies such as the Federal Trade Commission's mandatory disclosure rules. An opt‐in policy may be superior: it deregulates influencers who are reaping the rewards of past good advice.     

Imperfect durability and the Coase conjecture

This article considers a market served by a monopolist who sells a durable good that depreciates stochastically over time. We show that there exist three types of stationary equilibria: a Coase Conjecture equilibrium, a monopoly equilibrium, and a reputational equilibrium. When the depreciation rate is low, the Coase Conjecture equilibrium is the unique equilibrium. For intermediate values of the depreciation rate, all three equilibrium types coexist. When the depreciation rate is high, the monopoly equilibrium is the unique equilibrium. Consequently, when selling a good of sufficiently low durability, the monopolist does not lose any of her monopoly power. Furthermore, the steady‐state output in the reputational equilibrium falls below the monopoly quantity. Hence, in durable goods markets, welfare losses due to monopoly power may be larger than in markets for perishables.     

Compliance with pension‐related mandatory disclosures and debt financing

Using hand‐collected data on the level of pension‐related mandatory disclosures required by International Accounting Standard 19 Employee Benefits, we test whether compliance levels with these disclosures convey information that affects firms’ access to the public instead of the private debt market, as well as the cost of their new debt issues. We document a higher tendency to access the public debt market for firms with higher levels of pension‐related disclosure. Furthermore, we find that firms with higher levels of pension‐related disclosure enjoy a lower cost in terms of issuance of public debt, but not a lower cost for private debt issues. Thus, the benefits of disclosure in reducing information risk are only realisable when creditors rely heavily on financial statements in their decision making, due to the limited access to private information. Additional tests reveal that high compliance levels effectively mitigate the negative effect of pension deficits on the cost of public debt. These findings provide novel evidence in the extant literature on the role of mandatory (and, in particular, pension‐related) disclosures on firms’ debt financing. They also have important policy implications.     

Auctions with heterogeneous entry costs

If bidders have independent private values and homogeneous entry costs, a first‐ or second‐price auction with a reserve price equal to the seller’s value maximizes social surplus and seller revenue. We show that if entry costs are heterogeneous and private information, then the revenue‐maximizing reserve price is above the seller’s value, a positive admission fee (and a reserve price equal to the seller’s value) generates more revenue, and an entry cap combined with an admission fee generates even more revenue. Social surplus and seller revenue may either increase or decrease in the number of bidders, but they coincide asymptotically.     

Voluntary Disclosures and Analyst Feedback

We study the resource allocation role of voluntary disclosures when feedback from financial markets is potentially useful to managers in undertaking value maximizing actions. Managers weigh the short‐term price implications of disclosure against the long‐term efficiency gains due to feedback while financial analysts strategically produce information. The model can explain why managers disclose bad information (e.g., grim outlook), that reduces the stock price, and why prices respond more strongly to bad news relative to good news. We find that not all firms enjoy the same quality of feedback, and that feedback, by itself, does not induce more disclosure but less.     

Estimating the Gains from Trade in Limit-Order Markets

We present a method to estimate the gains from trade in limit‐order markets and provide empirical evidence that the limit‐order market is a good market design. Using observations on order submissions and execution and cancellation histories, we estimate both the distribution of traders' unobserved valuations for the stock and latent trader arrival rates. We use the resulting estimates to compute the current gains from trade, the gains from trade in a perfectly liquid market, and the gains from trade with a monopoly liquidity supplier. The current gains are 90% of the maximum gains and 150% of the monopolist gains.     

An empirical study of auction revenue rankings: the case of municipal bonds

Using a novel dataset of 386 first‐price municipal bond auctions held in California, I perform counterfactual revenue comparisons, based on the theoretical result of Milgrom and Weber (1982). I show that the revenue in the second‐price auction is nonparametrically identified, and the counterfactual revenue in the English auction can be bounded in an informative way. These results form a basis for nonparametric estimation of counterfactual revenue differences. I find that the revenue gain from using the English auction would be in the range of 11%—19% of the gross underwriting spread, and that most of it would already be captured by using the second‐price auction. The recent explosive growth of Internet English auctions, administered by Grant Street Group, provides external support to the claim that auction design matters in this market.     

The Wealth Effects of Reducing Private Placement Resale Restrictions

Recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission reduced resale restrictions on Rule 144 private placements from 12 months to 6 months with the intention of lowering the cost of equity capital for issuing firms. In Canada, similar regulatory changes were adopted several years ago, providing a unique opportunity to test the wealth effects of reducing private placement resale restrictions. We find that shortening resale restrictions reduces the liquidity portion of offer price discounts, and thus lowers the cost of equity capital for issuing firms, but has no significant effect on announcement‐period abnormal returns after controlling for issuer type. However, there is a fundamental shift in the types of firms making private placements of common stock after the legislation‐induced easing of resale restrictions. Specifically, we find that smaller firms and firms with greater information asymmetry are less likely to issue privately placed common stock after the legislative change, suggesting that the easing of resale restrictions reduces the costly signal that helps to overcome the Myers and Majluf (1984) underinvestment problem.     

Inference on vertical contracts between manufacturers and retailers allowing for nonlinear pricing and resale price maintenance

We present a model of vertical contracts between manufacturers and retailers with nonlinear pricing strategies. Using home‐scan data on bottled water produced by manufacturers and sold by retail chains in France, we estimate a structural demand and supply model allowing for two‐part tariff contracts between manufacturers and retailers. Using price‐cost margins recovered from estimates of demand parameters, we select the best supply model by performing nonnested tests, and find that manufacturers use two‐part tariff contracts with resale price maintenance. We then perform counterfactual policy simulations that restrict the use of these vertical contracts and assess welfare effects under alternative scenarios.     

Does Voluntary Disclosure Improve Stock Price Informativeness?

According to theory, comovement in stock prices reflects comovement in the fundamental factors underlying the values of stocks. Recent theory contends that stock price comovement can be driven by information markets or the informational opacity of the firm. To the extent that voluntary disclosure reduces information acquisition cost and enhances firm transparency, we predict that enhanced voluntary disclosure reduces stock price comovement. We provide evidence in support of this prediction using analyst evaluation of firm disclosure policy. Overall, our evidence supports the effectiveness of firm disclosure policy in increasing the amount of firm‐specific information contained in stock returns.     

Accounting information,disclosure, and expected utility: Do investors really abhor uncertainty?

Investors are said to “abhor uncertainty,” but if there were no uncertainty they could earn only the risk‐free rate. A fundamental result in the analytical accounting literature shows that investors buying into a CARA‐normal CAPM market pay lower asset prices, gain higher ex‐ante expected returns, and obtain higher expected utility, when the market payoff has higher variance. New investors obtain similar “welfare” gains from risk under a log/power utility CAPM. These results do not imply that investors “abhor information.” To realize investors' ex‐ante expectations, the subjective probability distributions representing market expectations must be accurate. Greater payoff risk can add to investors' expected utility, but higher ex‐post(realized) utility comes from better information and more accurate ex‐ante expectations. An important implication for accounting is that greater disclosure can have the simultaneous effects of (i) exposing more fully or perceptibly firms' payoff uncertainty, thereby increasing new investors' expected utility, and (ii) improving market estimates of firms' payoff parameters (means, variances, covariances), thereby giving investors a better chance of realizing their expectations. Paradoxically, better information can be valuable to new investors by exposing more fully and more accurately the risk in firms' business operations and results–new investors maximizing expected utility want both more risk and better information.     

Investment Horizon and Repo in the Over‐the‐Counter Market

This paper presents a three‐period model featuring a short‐term investor in the over‐the‐counter bond market. A short‐term investor stores cash because of a need to pay cash at some future date. If a short‐term investor buys bonds, then a deadline for retrieving cash lowers the resale price of bonds for the investor through bilateral bargaining in the bond market. Ex‐ante, this hold‐up problem explains the use of a repo by a short‐term investor, the existence of a haircut, and the vulnerability of a repo market to counterparty risk. This result holds without any uncertainty about bond returns or asymmetric information.     

美国私募发行证券的转售问题研究——兼论我国非公开发行证券转售制度的构建

私募发行的核心问题是注册豁免及转售规范。美国法从认购人资格、转售数量、信息披露、报告等各个方面对私募转售问题进行了规范。我国法律对非公开发行证券的转售规定过于简单，存在很大漏洞，建议借鉴美国私募的规定，完善我国非公开发行证券转售制度。     

Dynamic monopoly pricing and herding

We study dynamic pricing by a monopolist selling to buyers who learn from each other's purchases. The price posted in each period serves to extract rent from the current buyer, as well as to control the amount of information transmitted to future buyers. As information increases future rent extraction, the monopolist has an incentive to subsidize learning by charging a price that results in information revelation. Nonetheless, in the long run, the monopolist generally induces herding by either selling to all buyers or exiting the market.     

Limited Liability and Market Power

This paper evaluates the welfare effects of limited liability on firm behavior when market power is present. A risk-neutral monopolist facing uncertain demand (with constant returns to scale technology) produces higher output, yielding higher expected profits when costless exit is induced by limited liability. The higher output may increase social welfare (monopolist profit plus consumer surplus) even though the monopolist may overproduce relative to the quantity that maximizes social welfare. When no market power is present, the overproduction resulting from the provision of limited liability results in loss of social welfare. Appropriate use of liability limitation laws can thus provide policy makers an additional policy instrument with which to mitigate the effects of market power.JEL Classification: D24, D41, D42, G32, G38     

出版物转售价格维持的逻辑思辨与适用——基于反垄断法视角

是否维持出版物转售价格,一直是个颇有争议的话题。各国的基本态度是以反垄断法予以规制,赞成出版物转售价格维持者认为它可促进出版物的多样性发展,出版物的多样性必须依靠转售价格维持。虽然出版物转售价格维持在一定程度上有利于保护出版物多样性,但基本原则还必须尊重市场规律,利用竞争促进出版物的多样性。竞争也是最有效的方式,总体上讲,我国出版物转售价格应受我国反垄断法的规制,但在具体规则适用上则应区别对待。对于构成反垄断法中纵向限制竞争的行为,若涉及到国家基础政策且存在公共利益可根据相关法律予以豁免,否则,应坚决予以规制。     

Informational Feedback,Adverse Selection,and Optimal Disclosure Policy

Faceless trading in a secondary stock market not only redistributes wealth among investors but also generates information that feeds back to real decisions. Using this observation we re‐evaluate the “leveling‐the‐playing‐field” rationale for disclosure to secondary stock markets. By partially preempting traders' information advantage established from information acquisition, disclosure reduces private incentives to acquire information, resulting in two opposite effects on firm value. On one hand, this narrows the information gap between informed and uninformed traders and improves liquidity of firm shares. On the other hand, this reduces the informational feedback from the stock market to real decisions. This tradeoff determines the optimal disclosure policy. The model explains why firm value can be higher in an environment that simultaneously promotes disclosure and private information production and why growth firms are endogenously more opaque than value firms.