Stock market short-termism—an international perspective

This study uses a VAR approach with a time-varying risk premium to see if stock market investors are short-term oriented, placing too much weight on current and near cash flows. Using aggregate stock market data for Australia, Germany, Japan, USA and UK markets (1977–1999), we find the degree of persistent under-valuation of future cash flows is far higher in the UK relative to the other countries in our sample, and is market-wide. Also, over the period, US investors appear to have consistently underestimated long horizon cash flows in current stock market valuations relative to a rational valuation model.     

Accounting classification and the international harmonisation debate — an empirical investigation

In the current debate on international accounting harmonisation, references are made to accounting model categories. In particular, a distinction is made between the Anglo-American accounting cluster and the continental European cluster. First, we provide a review of the related accounting classification literature. Different classification results can be traced back to differences in the conceptional and methodological research designs. Second, my own classification attempt is presented which is founded on an actual database of financial reporting requirements in 14 countries and the IASC. Basically, a picture of an Anglo-American or continental European accounting model cannot be established.     

Tax competition and the international distribution of firm ownership: an invariance result

How does the international distribution of firm ownership affect the outcomes of tax/subsidy competition for mobile plants? As corporate ownership becomes increasingly globalised, this question becomes increasingly important for policy. We prove a strong invariance result in the context of the tax/subsidy competition between two host countries for a monopoly firm’s plant. Both the equilibrium plant location and the equilibrium tax/subsidy offers are independent of the international distribution of the firm’s ownership. The reason is that the tax/subsidy competition equalises the firm’s post-tax profits across countries, making owners of capital indifferent towards the location of production.