An alternative interpretation of the discontinuity in earnings distributions

We show that the asymmetric effects of income taxes and special items for profit and loss firms contribute to a discontinuity at zero in the distribution of earnings. Income taxes draw profit observations towards zero while negative special items pull loss observations away from zero. These earnings components are thus expected to contribute to a discontinuity even in the absence of discretion. We show our results are not an artifact of deflation and that other common components of earnings do not have similar effects on the earnings distribution around zero.

An evaluation of SFAS No. 130 comprehensive income disclosures

In this study, we provide evidence on the pricing of other comprehensive income (OCI) that differs from most evidence in prior research. Prior archival research has largely concluded that OCI is not priced by investors. In contrast, we provide evidence in the post-SFAS 130 period that OCI is priced on a dollar-for-dollar basis as is predicted by economic theory for transitory income items. We attribute this finding to our use of post-SFAS 130 as-reported measures of OCI rather than pre-SFAS 130 as-if estimates of OCI measures. Furthermore, we document that two components of OCI, foreign currency translation adjustment and unrealized gains/losses on available-for-sale securities, are priced by investors. In the post-SFAS 130 period, we also find that the type of financial statement in which firms report OCI and its components affects pricing, consistent with the conclusions of prior experimental research. However, our evidence suggests that investors pay greater attention to OCI information reported in the statement of changes in equity, rather than in a statement of financial performance. This could be attributed to investors becoming more familiar in the post-SFAS 130 period with the predominant reporting of OCI and its components in the statement of changes in equity. These findings may be relevant to both the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board, which jointly are undertaking a new project that, in part, is addressing financial statement presentation of OCI items.

Opening the black box: Finding the source of cost inefficiency

Parametric and nonparametric procedures are used to identify the apparent source of cost inefficiency in banking. Inefficiencies of 20–25% from earlier studies are reduced to 1–5% when, in addition to commonly specified cost function influences, variables reflecting banks’ external business environment and industry indicators of “productivity” are added. These productivity indicators explain most of the reduction in bank operating cost over 1992–2001 and was 5 times the reduction in the dispersion of inefficiency. Inefficiency appears stable over time because it is small relative to industry-wide cost changes occurring concurrently and because technology dispersion is imperfect.

Are some Indian banks too large? An examination of size efficiency in Indian banking

In this paper we use data from the years 1997–2003 to evaluate the size efficiency, as distinct from scale efficiency, of Indian banks. Following Maindiratta [Maindiratta A (1990) J Econ 46:39–56] we consider a bank to be “too large” if breaking it up into a number of smaller units would result in a larger output bundle than what could be produced from the same input by a single bank. When this is the case, the bank is not size efficient. Our analysis shows that many of the banks are, indeed, too large in various years. We also find that often a bank is operating in the region of diminishing returns to scale but is not a candidate for break up.

Allocative efficiency of rural water supply – a globally flexible SGM cost frontier

This contribution investigates the efficiency of water suppliers in rural areas of East and West Germany. A non-radial measure of input specific allocative inefficiency is used to reduce the distributional dependency with respect to the inefficiency parameters. It is based on the demand system of a flexible cost function for the variable inputs labour, energy and chemicals modelled by applying a modified symmetric generalized McFadden functional form. Concavity restrictions, as required by economic theory, are imposed. The analysis reveals that efforts towards increasing suppliers’ allocative efficiency should focus on the relatively inefficient usage of the input chemicals. The input specific allocative model specification was found to be superior to the overall allocative specification.

Measuring performance in the presence of stochastic demand for hospital services: an analysis of Belgian general care hospitals

Since demand for hospital services is subject to substantial variability, the relationship between uncertain demand, excess capacity, hospital costs and performance should be investigated thoroughly. In this paper a waiting time indicator to proxy hospital standby capacity is incorporated into a multi-product translog cost function for Belgian general care hospitals. The indicator is derived from queuing theory and improves on the conventionally used (inverse of the) occupancy rate. The multi-product stochastic frontier specification allows calculation of cost elasticities and marginal cost of seven hospital departments, as well as the degree of economies of scale and scope and enables identification of differences in efficiency.

On Minimally-supported <Emphasis Type="Italic">D</Emphasis>-optimal Designs for Polynomial Regression with Log-concave Weight Function

This paper studies minimally-supported D-optimal designs for polynomial regression model with logarithmically concave (log-concave) weight functions. Many commonly used weight functions in the design literature are log-concave. For example, and exp(−x ²) in Theorem 2.3.2 of Fedorov (Theory of optimal experiments, 1972) are all log-concave. We show that the determinant of information matrix of minimally-supported design is a log-concave function of ordered support points and the D-optimal design is unique. Therefore, the numerically D-optimal designs can be constructed efficiently by cyclic exchange algorithm.     

$$\mathcal{D}$$-optimal Minimum Support Mixture Designs in Blocks

An easy method to construct efficient blocked mixture experiments in the presence of fixed and/or random blocks is presented. The method can be used when qualitative variables are involved in a mixture experiment as well. The resulting designs are -optimal in the class of minimum support designs. It is illustrated that the minimum support designs are more efficient than orthogonally blocked mixture experiments presented in the literature and only slightly less efficient than -optimal designs.     

Variation diminishing property of densities of uniform generalized order statistics

Let f _*,r , r ≥ 1, denote the density function of rth uniform generalized order statistics as defined by Kamps (1995) or Cramer and Kamps (2003). We prove the following variation diminishing property: the number of zeros in (0,1) of any linear combination does not exceed the number of sign changes in the sequence (a ₁, . . . ,a _r ). This result is applied to study monotonicity and convexity properties of f _*,r .     

Parsing Work Environments Along the Dimensions of Sexual and Non-Sexual Harassment: Drawing Lines in Office Sand

Laws addressing harassment at work have evolved considerably since court systems first recognized that (sexual) harassment is illegal. Now, managers must worry about protected classes other than sex (e.g., race, age, etc.), and the effects of harassment on bystanders as well as victims (i.e., ambient harassment). Understanding these newer conceptualizations of workplace harassment is critical for mangers dealing with an increasingly complex array of possible work environments, only some of which are illegal. Toward this end, we present a taxonomy of eight possible work environments, created by parsing the legal definition of sexual harassment (i.e., the first-recognized type of hostile work environment). The taxonomy illustrates the evolution of law in this area, and highlights the multidimensional nature of workplace harassment. Also discussed are potential complications arising from how a reasonable person and a victim might interpret behavior. Managers using the taxonomy may better assess whether their work environments have crossed the line, or facilitate movement from less- to more-desirable work environments.