The Industry Life Cycle,Acquisitions and Investment: Does Firm Organization Matter?

We examine the effect of industry life‐cycle stages on within‐industry acquisitions and capital expenditures by conglomerates and single‐segment firms controlling for endogeneity of organizational form. We find greater differences in acquisitions than in capital expenditures, which are similar across organizational types. In particular, 36% of the growth recorded by conglomerate segments in growth industries comes from acquisitions, versus 9% for single‐segment firms. In growth industries, the effect of financial dependence on acquisitions and plant openings is mitigated for conglomerate firms. Plants acquired by conglomerate firms increase in productivity. The results suggest that organizational forms' comparative advantages differ across industry conditions.     

Factors That Affect Understanding of Social Responsibility Accounting*

Many social responsibility/sustainable development (SR/SD) issues affecting accounting policies and standards will have to be addressed by present and future accountants. This paper investigates qualitative factors that may impede the learning of, and attitudes toward, SR/SD. While Gordon (1998) examined exposure to SR/SD, the present study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, to overcome one of the limitations of Gordon's study, noted by her, matched pair responses (n = 198) to pre‐ and post‐study questionnaires are employed in this study. These responses are analyzed using t‐statistics, cluster analysis, and multivariate analysis. Second, three factors not previously examined that may affect learning of SR/SD (number of economics courses taken, gender, and grade point average) are explored in this paper. The positive conclusion is that exposure to SR/SD had more influence on learning, understanding, and attitudes than did pre‐existing demographic and educational background variables with the exception of grade point average. As a surrogate for intelligence or ability to learn, grade point average was found to be highly significant in a multivariate model. An appreciation that ability to learn affects understanding and attitudes is important for instructors in both continuing professional education and university/college accounting.     

The Voluntary Inclusion of Forecasts in the MD&A Section of Annual Reports*

Abstract. In this study, we appeal to theories advanced by Darrough and Stoughton (1990) to enhance our understanding of why some firms may voluntarily include directional forecasts in their annual reports while others do not. The data are consistent with their predictions that a firm's disclosure policy reflects its concern for both financial market valuation and product market competition. We find that for “good news firms, the probability of forecasting is increasing in the financing requirements but decreasing in the threat of competitor entry. The converse holds for “bad news” firms. These results lend further empirical support to the observation that the familiar good news hypothesis tested in the management earnings forecast literature offers only a partial explanation for the decision to forecast. Interestingly, however, even after controlling for financial and product market considerations, an overall voluntary disclosure bias still exists in the data. The data also provide support for the OSC's concern about a voluntary disclosure bias. Only 17.5 percent of our sample forecasts represent revisions downward relative to the previous year's results. However, in contrast to the OSC's concern about a general lack of forward-looking disclosures in annual reports, 35.9 percent of our sample firms include directional forecasts in their MD&A or elsewhere in the annual report.     

Evolution and Human Behavior

The simple economic approach to human behavior is inconsistent with many human actions. Firstly we engage in very considerable charitable gifts to strangers, people who are not related to us. We also risk our lives, or some of us do, sometimes for the benefit of collective entities like nations. This is not only a deviation from simple maximization for the individual and hence uneconomic, but would appear to contradict the general principles of evolution. At first glance these traits should have been selected out. Looking back to primitive times it can be seen that both of these activities had evolutionary value then and hence have been preserved, although maybe they will be eliminated after a number of generations of modern society. Hamiltonian altruism led to gifts to people who were members of tribal groups and to neighboring tribes. With the improvement in communication, these gifts, albeit small gifts, are much more widely distributed. The preservation of the territory of a tribe also had evolutionary value and hence the willingness of individuals to take risk to that end. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

SOCIAL SECURITY AND LABOR SUPPLY INCENTIVES

Many provisions of the Social Security program distort an individual's labor supply incentives. In particular, the payroll tax, the earnings test, the offsetting actuarial adjustment, and the dependence of the size of future benefits on the level of current earnings all affect the net return to extra work. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the size of the net tax rate on labor income in a variety of circumstances, taking into account all these provisions, as well as the personal income tax. We find that the Social Security Program on net in the past has provided a large subsidy to labor supply, which for many people effectively offset the personal income tax. This subsidy rate, however, has been declining steadily over time