Oligopolistic markets with sequential search and production cost uncertainty

This article analyzes a sequential search model where firms face identical but stochastic production costs, the realizations of which are unknown to consumers. We characterize a perfect Bayesian equilibrium satisfying a reservation price property and provide a sufficient condition for such an equilibrium to exist. We show that (i) firms set on average higher prices and make larger profits compared to the scenario where consumers observe production costs, (ii) expected prices and consumer welfare can be non‐monotonic in the number of firms, and (iii) the impact of production cost uncertainty vanishes as the number of firms becomes very large.     

Consumer obfuscation by a multiproduct firm

This article shows that a multiproduct firm has incentives to obfuscate its products by using search costs to induce consumers to search through its products in a particular order. The consumers who draw high valuations of the first product terminate their search earlier than the consumers who draw low valuations. Thus, the firm has incentives to raise the price of the earlier searched product. The optimal search cost for an obfuscated product is such that consumers inspect the product only if the match values of the previously searched goods have been very poor.     

A comprehensive model of information search and processing behaviour of mutual fund investors

Understanding the investment behaviour, specifically information search and processing behaviour of mutual fund (MF) investors is a key to the effective marketing of MF schemes, and yet we have only limited understanding of it. This study proposes and validates a model of information search and processing of MF investors. The proposed model is arrived at by combining the limited insights from the existing studies dispersed across multiple domains of literature, viz., Traditional Finance, Behavioural Finance and Consumer Behaviour. The model suggests that: (i) MF investors’ subjective knowledge (SK) negatively impacts their perceived purchase risk (PPR); (ii) MF investors’ SK positively impacts their purchase decision involvement (PDI); (iii) PPR negatively impacts their PDI; (iv) PDI positively impacts their depth of information search (DIS) and information processing behaviour (DIP); and (v) DIS positively impacts their DIP. The model is empirically validated through structural equation modelling of data collected from a survey of 268 MF investors. The implications of the model, as are relevant for the MF marketers and the policymakers, are also discussed.     

Compensation discussion and analysis (CD&A): Readability and management obfuscation

This paper examines the relationship between the readability of the CD&A section in proxy statements and management motives to obfuscate executive compensation disclosures. Using the CD&As in the 2007 and 2008 proxy statements, we examine whether the CD&A readability is associated with the proportion of CEO pay not related to the economic determinants of compensation. We note that the average CD&A is difficult to read. We find that firms with CEO pay exceeding the benchmark pay have a more difficult to read CD&A in the 2007 proxy season. The result suggests that, in its first CD&A report, top management tends to cloak its compensation practices when the practices are not tied to the economic determinants of pay. However, we also find those firms with CEO pay exceeding the benchmark pay improve the readability of their CD&As in the 2008 proxy season, suggesting that executive compensation disclosure improves under regulatory oversight and public pressure.     

An empirical model of search with vertically differentiated products

This article provides a framework for studying price dispersion in markets with product differentiation and search frictions. We show under which assumptions we can obtain an equilibrium in which vertically differentiated firms mix prices over different supports. The model can explain the frequently changing prices reported in several empirical studies, but also why some firms have persistently higher prices than others. We show how to estimate the model by maximum likelihood using only prices. Estimates for grocery items in the United Kingdom reveal that most of the observed price variation is explained by supermarket heterogeneity rather than search frictions, whereas the estimated amount of search is low.     

Buyers' and sellers' markets: A simple rational expectations search model of the housing market

The terms buyers' market and sellers' market are commonly used in contexts that most economists would characterize as excess supply and excess demand. It is puzzling, however, that in many instances the press and general public are all aware that it is a buyers' or sellers' market. Are these markets really that inefficient? We offer definitions of buyers' and sellers' markets that are consistent with a full rational expectations equilibrium in a simple general equilibrium search model of a heterogeneous durable goods market.     

From innovation to obfuscation: continuous time finance fifty years later

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - This paper surveys several of the most important applications of the continuous time finance paradigm in portfolio selection and derivatives pricing....     

The variability of velocity of money in a search model

We construct a dynamic equilibrium model where there is costly search in the goods market and the labor market. Incorporating shocks to money growth and productivity, we calibrate the model to the US time series data to examine the model's quantitative predictions on aggregate variables and, in particular, on the variability of consumption velocity of money. Despite the fact that money is the only asset, the model captures most of the variability of velocity in the data. It also generates realistic predictions on the moments of other variables and provides persistent propagation of the shocks. The model generates these results largely because costly search gives an important role to the extensive margin of trade.     

考虑资金成本的投资回收期模型的依据

长期投资和项目投资是管理会计中必须考虑的重要科目。在投资可行性研究中,都将以是否考虑货币的时间价值作为区分静态研究和动态研究的依据。而投资回收期法在大多数教材中被认为是静态研究的方法。本文提出考虑利息的投资回收期法同样考虑了货币的时间价值,从而使投资回收期法更适于企业实际应用。     

Incorporating environmental factors into a highway maintenance cost model

As infrastructure ages, the maintenance cost of highways is becoming a major international concern that hitherto has been overlooked by public sector researchers. This paper begins to fill this gap by focusing on the nature and extent of the impact of environmental cost drivers on costs of highway maintenance. By linking a cost driver framework with engineering theory, and using geographic information systems methodology, it has been possible to demonstrate that the physical geological environment has a significant effect on the cost of highway maintenance activity. In addition to advancing highway maintenance cost behaviour understanding, the research illustrates that to gain new insights, researchers must be prepared to base causality enquiries on theoretical foundations advanced by other disciplines and to work with data and methods of analysis which are appropriate to each situation. From a strategic cost management perspective, this study elevates environmental factors in importance as major drivers of cost and in particular, highlights their related interaction with management strategy and policy. The paper discusses aspects of the cost driver framework and application to planning and control accountability, describes dynamic inter-relationships between activity-based costing and activity-based management and suggests directions for further research.     

In search of the liquidity effect in a modern monetary model

This paper examines the impact of a monetary policy shock in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with sticky prices and financial market frictions. First, we examine the shortcomings of monetary models emphasizing these frictions individually. The model then is specified to limit the response of prices and savings to a current period monetary disturbance. Our results show that this model can account for the following key responses to an expansionary monetary policy shock: a fall in the nominal interest rate; a rise in output, consumption, and investment; and a gradual increase in the price level. Finally, a detailed sensitivity analysis shows the model's results depend on the parameters assigned to critical structural features.     

Accounting case search: A web-based search tool for finding published accounting cases

The creation of the Accounting Case Search website was motivated by the Pathways Commission Report and inspired by the frustration felt in trying to find cases for courses we have had to develop over the past 17 years. The site updates and extends previously published case search resources such as Weinstein (2005), Lipe (2006), and Miller et al. (2014), as well as resources available at the Management Accounting Section (MAS) and ATA Section sites on the American Accounting Association (AAA) website. The site currently includes all cases published to date in the Journal of Accounting Education, Issues in Accounting Education and the IMA Educational Case Journal (492 cases). Searching for cases at the site is based primarily on courses (course title), which can then be narrowed by keywords (Accounting Topics). This website will be updated by the authors as new cases are published. The authors will also expand the set of source journals. The website address is http://www.cases.ndacct.com/.     

A full cost environmental accounting experiment

A lack of appropriate measurement techniques has constrained full cost environmental accounting (FCEA) experimentation. Yet, there has been little research on the applicability of valuation techniques recently developed by environmental economists within FCEA frameworks. This paper examines a reporting experiment using these valuation techniques that was undertaken by an Australian Government Department managing publicly owned forests. The FCEA experiment was ultimately not successful. However, the implementation experiences of the Department including the reactions of its managers and stakeholders provide an opportunity to critically reflect on the experimental outcomes to extend the current empirical knowledge of corporate social responsibility reporting. Such critical reflection has not been common in past FCEA experimentation.     

Actuarial cost methods: A primer

This article is intended to take some of the mystery and intimidation out of pension actuarial cost methods by presenting a non-technical discussion of their underlying philosophies and principal characteristics. In so doing, it seeks to provide a sufficient level of understanding of commonly-used methods to permit the evaluation of proposed pension accounting changes and the application of existing pension accounting standards affected by these methods. It is applicable to both undergraduate and graduate accounting courses and to MBA courses in corporate financial reporting.     

A theory of delegated search for the best alternative

Searching for the best worker, a reliable supply alternative, or the most profitable investment is frequently delegated to an agent. This article develops a theory of delegated search. We show that the principal’s ability to delegate depends on the agent’s luck, her initial resources, and the contract that governs her search. With moral hazard, the optimal contract is characterized by performance deadlines with bonuses for early completion. If performance cannot be specified, the optimal search is implemented by an option‐to‐buy contract for the principal. If performance is partially specified, the optimal contract is a standard pay‐for‐performance arrangement.     

A theory of voluntary disclosure and cost of capital

This paper explores the links between firms’ voluntary disclosures and their cost of capital. Existing studies investigate the relation between mandatory disclosures and cost of capital and find no cross-sectional effect but a negative association in time-series. In this paper, I find that when disclosure is voluntary firms that disclose their information have a lower cost of capital than firms that do not disclose, but the association between voluntary disclosure and cost of capital for disclosing and nondisclosing firms is positive in aggregate. I further examine whether reductions in cost of capital indicate improved risk-sharing or investment efficiency. I also find that high (low) disclosure frictions lead to overinvestment (underinvestment) relative to first-best. As average cost of capital proxies for risk-sharing but not investment efficiency, the relation between cost of capital and ex ante efficiency may be ambiguous and often irrelevant.     

Inconspicuousness and obfuscation: how large shareholders dynamically manipulate output and information for trading purposes

I model a large shareholder who can affect firm fundamentals. I demonstrate that the large shareholder amplifies the component of his private information that is unforecastable by uninformed traders and thus alters the fundamental value of the firm to facilitate his trading profits: he obfuscates. I then construct a continuous time dynamic version of the model using Fourier transform methods. In the dynamic model, the large shareholder does not just simply amplify the unforecastable part of the fundamental: he also alters its stochastic structure. The model thus marries market microstructure with real resource allocation. There are two consequences: (i) the large shareholder induces the fundamental value of the firm to more closely mimic the noise traders, and (ii) market liquidity is reduced.     

Disclosure and the cost of capital: A discussion

In this discussion I comment on the contribution of two papers toward our understanding of how disclosure affects the cost of capital. Specifically, in the context of these papers, I comment on whether disclosure ameliorates or exacerbates the cost of capital that arises from the existence of information asymmetries in capital markets. This is a notion that should be of fundamental interest in that it provides an economic basis for evaluating the costs and benefits of accounting information.     

A remark on managerial behaviour and agency cost

This paper studies the relationship between managers’ private profit and agency cost using dynamic modelling methods. We conclude that the agency cost is a concave function of the managers’ private profit and that the managers’ private profit will lead to more investment cash outflow.