Capital Equalization and the Australian States

The Australian Grants Commission has recently considered ways to take account of differences in capital costs across States within the existing fiscal equalization formula. Here we develop a theoretical methodology for estimating differences in the costs of capital faced by the States in the General Government Sector. This methodology is used to generate preliminary estimates of State capital cost 'disabilities' from 1962–63 to 1995–96. Finally, we suggest how the methodology and the estimates of capital cost disabilities might be integrated into the Commission's formula to produce a grant distribution which reflects different costs of capital across States.     

Currency Risk and Country Risk in International Banking

This paper focuses on the conditions under which banks are subject to currency and country risks on their dollar-denominated loans to foreign firms and governments. We conclude that currency risk is a function of the rates of domestic and foreign inflation, deviations from purchasing power parity, and the effect of these deviations on the firm's and the nation's dollar-equivalent cash flows. Country risk is largely determined by the variability of the nation's terms of trade and the government's willingness to allow the national economy to adjust rapidly to changing economic fortunes.     

A Reexamination of Behavior in Experimental Audit Markets: The Effects of Moral Reasoning and Economic Incentives on Auditor Reporting and Fees*

This study uses experimental markets to investigate how moral reasoning influences auditor reporting under different levels of economic incentives. In each multiperiod market, auditor subjects could either (1) misreport low observed outcomes as high and thereby reap economic advantages at the expense of third‐party investors, or (2) truthfully report low observed outcomes as low but thereby forgo the economic advantages of misreporting. We extend the Calegari, Schatzberg, and Sevcik 1998 experimental‐markets setting to incorporate moral reasoning, and test hypotheses based on the economic model of Magee and Tseng 1990 and the neo‐Kohlbergian moral reasoning framework of Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, and Thoma 1999. We document a significant effect of moral reasoning on auditor behavior. Specifically, we find that misreporting and premium fees are more likely with higher than with lower moral reasoning subjects, and the moral reasoning effect diminishes as economic penalties increase in the market. These findings provide valuable insights for specifying the determinants of auditor misreporting, the observable behaviors that signal its existence, and the institutions that can prevent its occurrence in the market. We conclude that the relation between moral reasoning and behavior is more complex than commonly assumed in the accounting literature, and identify directions for future research.     

Inflation in the USA,UK and Australia:Some Comparisons*

USA, UK and Australian wage inflation experiences during the post-World-War-II period are examined principally within the framework of the long-run Phillips curve model. Attention is drawn to the sensitivity of wage rate changes to retail price level changes and to the possibility of a temporal change in this relationship. The analyses of these countries are compared so as to highlight similarities and differences.     

The Credit Ratings Game

The collapse of AAA‐rated structured finance products in 2007 to 2008 has brought renewed attention to conflicts of interest in credit rating agencies (CRAs). We model competition among CRAs with three sources of conflicts: (1) CRAs conflict of understating risk to attract business, (2) issuers' ability to purchase only the most favorable ratings, and (3) the trusting nature of some investor clienteles. These conflicts create two distortions. First, competition can reduce efficiency, as it facilitates ratings shopping. Second, ratings are more likely to be inflated during booms and when investors are more trusting. We also discuss efficiency‐enhancing regulatory interventions.     

Who Is in Control? The Role of Self‐Perception,Knowledge, and Income in Explaining Consumer Financial Behavior

The current research examines the relationship between consumer financial knowledge, income, and locus of control on financial behavior. Ethnicity is included as a potential moderator of the effects of these three variables on financial behavior. Findings suggest that consumers’ propensity to save, budget, and control spending depends partly on their level of perceived control over outcomes as well as knowledge and financial resources. Evidence of race and ethnicity as moderators is mixed.     

The Effect of Money Shocks on Interest Rates in the Presence of Conditional Heteroskedasticity

Most current empirical work finds no evidence that money shocks lower interest rates. We show that these nonresults are mainly due to a failure to model the conditional heteroskedasticity of interest rates. Autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models find a significant liquidity effect where ordinary least squares (OLS) models do not. The existence of a liquidity effect is found using different models and sample periods when ARCH models are used in estimation, but never when OLS is employed.