Ex-ante performance of REIT portfolios

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - The Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) market has become an increasingly important vehicle for alternative investment for equity investors. While...     

Operating Lease as Alternative Financing for REITs: a Viable Strategy or a Sign of Trouble?

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - Extant REIT research largely overlooks operating leases as an alternative source of financing. In this study, we hand-collect lease information of...     

IRS Private Letter Rulings: Initial Evidence on Determinants and Consequences

This study examines the determinants of firms' requests for Private Letter Rulings (PLRs) from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and their impact on firms' cash holdings. Our results show that PLR requests tend to be made by firms with more active tax planning, more acquisitions, higher analyst following, higher leverage, and less in-house tax expertise. We also show that firms with IRS audit red flags are less likely to request a PLR. We use a difference-in-difference approach to assess changes in cash holdings following PLR requests and report a decrease in cash holdings for PLR firms, consistent with the notion that PLRs act to reduce tax uncertainty. Our study provides the first empirical evidence about the determinants of PLR requests and complements prior work on tax uncertainty and cash holdings (Hanlon, Maydew and Saavedra, 2017).