将财务化繁为简

研究显示:有害的复杂性会为组织带来约10.2%的利润损失。因此,有必要现在就审查一下你所在企业的财务部和整个组织,看看是否可以通过降低复杂性来减少损失。在绝大多数企业中,财务部门处于复杂的系统和流程网络的中心,贯穿从财务报告一直到业绩管理。     

TIME CONSISTENCY IN ALTERNATING‐MOVE POLICY GAMES*

We examine alternating‐move policy games where the government and the private sector alternate their moves. In contrast with the standard policy game, the set of equilibrium payoffs of the present model is bounded away from the payoff under the one‐shot Nash equilibrium, called the Kydland–Prescott outcome, and the upper bound is close to the payoff under the optimal policy (called the Ramsey policy) if the government is sufficiently patient. In other words, the Kydland–Prescott outcome is not time consistent, while the Ramsey outcome could be approximated by a time‐consistent policy of the same game.     

Wealth Distribution, Inflation Tax, and Societal Benefits of Illiquid Bonds

Illiquid nominal government bonds are shown to have two opposing effects on welfare. First, the relatively poor choose to top-up money balances for future consumption by purchasing nominal bonds at a discount. The wealth distribution becomes more centered with a smaller consumption deviation from the first best. Second, the higher inflation tax on monetary wealth to finance interest payments makes money less valuable, so that the quantity of output produced in exchange for money decreases. The trade-off between the welfare-enhancing effect on wealth distribution and the distortionary effect on output implies the socially optimal discount rate and liquidity.     

INTEREST GROUPS,ELECTORAL COMPETITION,AND PROBABILISTIC VOTING FOR TRADE POLICIES*

Current models of trade policy formation in representative democracies lack the micro foundations from which the political actions of voters, interest groups, and policy makers can be deduced. This paper provides microfoundations for the most influential of representative democracy models, the Magee-Brock-Young (MBY) model. Probabilistic voting is formally introduced, the conditions for active lobbying are examined, uniqueness of lobbying equilibrium is established, and the responses of different groups' lobbying to exogenous changes are discussed. Finally, the existence of tariff equilibria is studied when, different from MBY, both parties share a common strategy space.     

The differential information content of earnings announcements: The case of merger*

Abstract. The differential information content hypothesis implies that the magnitude of the abnormal return is a function of firm characteristics such as size or quality of reported earnings. Previous studies, however, provide little linkage to the relationship between firm characteristic changes and stock return behavior around the earnings announcement date. This study examines this relationship with 102 sample firms that experienced mergers from 1977 to 1984. For a sample of firms whose future uncertainty (measured by firm variance) was reduced by merger, a significant reduction in the marginal information content of the earnings announcement after merger was observed. This reduction did not occur, however, for variance-increasing merger firms or for pair-matched control firms. Similar results were obtained when the firm's future uncertainty was measured by merger type classified by how closely industries of merging firms were related. Résumé. L'hypothèse du contenu marginal en information veut que l'ampleur du rendement anormal soit fonction des caractéristiques de l'entreprise telles que la taille ou la qualité des bénéfices déclarés. Jusqu'à maintenant, les études n'établissent qu'une faible relation entre l'evolution des caractéristiques de l'entreprise et le comportement du rendement des actions, à proximité de la date de déclaration des bénéfices. Les auteurs examinent cette relation auprès d'un échantillon de 102 entreprises qui ont connu des fusions entre 1977 et 1984. Travaillant sur un échantillon d'entreprises dont l'incertitude relative à leur avenir (mesurée selon la fluctuation rapportée par l'entreprise) a été réduite à la faveur de la fusion, les auteurs observent une diminution significative du contenu marginal en information de la déclaration des bénéfices après la fusion. Cependant, cette diminution ne s'est pas produite pour les entreprises issues de fusions qui enregistrent une fluctuation croissante ou pour les entreprises dominantes appariées. Les résultats sont similaires lorsque l'incertitude relative à l'avenir de l'entreprise est mesurée en fonction de la nature de la fusion, classée selon la mesure dans laquelle les secteurs d'activité des entreprises fusionnées sont liés.     

International Arbitrage Pricing Theory: An Empirical Investigation

In this paper, we test the arbitrage pricing theory (APT) in an international setting. Inter-battery factor analysis is used to estimate the international common factors and the Chow test is used in testing the validity of the APT. Our inter-battery factor analysis results show that the number of common factors between a pair of countries ranges from one to five, and our cross-sectional test results lead us to reject the joint hypothesis that the international capital market is integrated and that the APT is internationally valid. Our results, however, do not rule out the possibility that the APT holds locally or regionally in segmented capital markets. Finally, the basic results of both the inter-battery factor analysis and the cross-sectional tests are largely invariant to the numeraire currency chosen.     

Discussion of “Accounting Recognition,Moral Hazard,and Communication”

This paper addresses two issues within an agency setting. First, it identifies conditions under which late recognition of an event is preferred to early recognition in the absence of communication of other private information. Second, it demonstrates that the agent's ability to voluntarily disclose his or her private information interacts with the preference for early versus late recognition. Of special interest is the case where early recognition is preferred to late when there is no other source of information, but late recognition is preferred in the presence of a secondary source. I have three types of comments on the paper. The first summarizes the important aspects of the model. The second involves the interpretation of the control problem as accounting recognition. The third contains suggestions regarding how one might bring a valuation perspective into the control setting.