The optimal trading and pricing of securities with asymmetric capital gains taxes and transaction costs

This article explores the optimal trading and pricing of taxablesecurities with asymmetric capital gains taxes and transactioncosts. In the long-term region, investors realize all gainsbelow some critical cutoff level, which we derive analytically.In the short-term region, investors defer all gains and, dependingupon the time remaining in the short-term region, may also defersmall losses. Contrary to common intuition, deferral of short-termlosses can be optimal even without transaction costs. The valueof tax timing is considerably higher under the optimal tradingstrategy than under alternative strategies previously analyzed.The impact of offset rules is also explored.     

Dynamics of financial markets and transaction costs: A graph-based study

In financial markets, trading patterns influence the behaviour of arbitrage, surveillance, risk management and pricing returns. The analysis of these patterns is important for defining policies in financial regulation as well as portfolios of international assets. Using financialization as a conceptual framework to understand the current trading patterns of financial markets, this work employs a market graph model for studying the stock indexes of geographically separated financial markets. By using an edge creation condition based on a transaction cost threshold, the resulting market graph features a strong connectivity, some traces of a power law in the degree distribution and an intensive presence of cliques. Furthermore, an inverse relation between transaction costs and maximal clique size is noticed. The market graph model also indicates that infrastructure, sustainability and commodity indexes from APEC, EU and NAFTA affect the behaviour of markets. As a result, the graph approach shows a consistent set of outcomes that mostly explain the financialization dynamics of markets.     

An empirical analysis of intertemporal asset pricing models with transaction costs and habit persistence

In intertemporal asset pricing models, transaction costs are usually neglected. In this paper we explicitly incorporate transaction costs in these models and analyze to what extent this extension is helpful in explaining the cross-section of expected returns. An empirical analysis using CRSP data on size-based portfolios examines the role of the transaction costs and shows that incorporating such costs in the consumption-based model with power utility does not yield very satisfactory results. However, the introduction of habit persistence substantially improves the model. We find rather strong evidence of habit persistence in monthly consumption data. The plots of the models' pricing errors indicate that an intertemporal asset pricing model with transaction costs and habit persistence explains the cross-sectional variation in the portfolio returns quite accurately.     

Legal constraints,transaction costs and the evaluation of mutual funds

The paper considers the legal restrictions on investment and the transaction costs related to optimal turnover that affect mutual funds. A method is developed for mutual fund performance evaluation when both these factors are included in the reference portfolios, and it is applied to a sample of available Spanish mutual funds. The poor performance results reflected in previous studies are not significantly modified. However, when net returns on the reference portfolios are used in the evaluation the performance is clearly improved.     

Banks,firms and the relative pricing of tax-exempt and taxable bonds

The traditional analysis of the relative pricing of tax-exempt and taxable debt is a habitat theory of the term structure of interest rates. In the traditional analysis the preferences of investors for particular maturities of debt lead to unique pricing relations at every point on the yield curve which are indicative of investor marginal tax brackets. Recent work by Fama (1977) suggests that banks are potential arbitrageurs across tax-exempt and taxable bond markets which force a particular equilibrium on the pricing of short-term bonds. Miller (1977) suggests that the choice of debt or equity financing by firms in the aggregate forces a similar equilibrium on the pricing of all tax-exempt and taxable bonds. This paper exploits the institution of Regulation Q and its effects on the banking system to bring evidence to bear on the predictions of these three models.     

Insolvency,tax and liquidation distributions: dividends,capital gains and the dead hand of the past

Shareholders are normally entitled to the surplus, if any, which remains after a liquidator has paid off the company's creditors and discharged all of its outstanding liabilities. Surplus distribution to shareholders is an anticipated event in the liquidation of a solvent company. Shareholders in insolvent companies, by contrast, are likely to be pleasantly surprised to receive surpluses prior to the cancellation of failed investments. Taxation liabilities are likely to arise for the shareholders in both events—under independent and, to a degree, inconsistent regimes provided by the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cwth) (‘ITAA36’) and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cwth) (‘ITAA97’). This paper analyses Australian taxation of liquidation surpluses, noting historical factors and the approaches taken in four comparable tax jurisdictions. Company law applicable to liquidation surplus distributions is surveyed by way of introduction. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exposure to the world and trading-bloc risks: A multivariate capital asset pricing model

This paper employs a capital asset pricing model that incorporates both world and trading-bloc factors to show that the recent trend of trade regionalism has led to segmentation of world stock markets. The model is developed within a multivariate GARCH framework. The conditional time-varying betas are derived to examine the dynamics of risk exposures to the world and trading-bloc factors. The results show risk exposure behaviour that is not revealed using static risk estimates.     

Organizational structure,risk-based capital requirements,and the sales of downgraded bonds

Using bond downgrades as external shocks to life insurers’ asset risk, we document several findings of the impact of organizational structure and risk factors on investment risk taking. First, we find that mutual insurers and widely-held stock insurers are more likely to sell downgraded bonds than are closely-held stock insurers. Second, we find evidence that insurers are less likely to sell downgraded bonds that remain in the same rating class than bonds downgraded to a lower rating class. The result implies that insurers sell downgraded bonds mainly because of additional capital charge is imposed, not because of downgrade itself. In other words, risk factors in risk-based capital regulation do matter on life insurers’ investment risk taking. Finally, we find that life insurers might be reluctant to sell downgraded bonds at fire-sale prices during the 2008–2009 financial crisis.     

Arbitrage bounds in markets with noisy prices and the puzzle of negative option prices implicit in bonds

The term structure of interest rates has occupied economists for many years. This is testimony to the importance of the term structure (or, equivalently, valuation operator) and to the difficulty of obtaining reliable estimates of it. Until recently, it was not possible to reconcile the theoretical existence of a multiplicity of valuation operators in an incomplete bond market and the empirical nonexistence of even a single one. MacKay and Prisman [Estimating valuation operators in incomplete market with noises: Can noise complete the market. Working paper, 1996] tackle this problem. In this paper, an amendment to and a generalization of their methodology is presented. The amendment preserves the linearity of valuation operators and allows use of efficient linear programming techniques. Further, it facilitates an admissible consideration of the puzzle of negative option prices embedded in bonds. The empirical results presented in this paper were obtained using data on extendable Government of Canada bonds. The results indicate that although the gap between the lowest and the highest prices assigned to a cash flow by different valuation operators is significant, it is not sufficient to resolve the above-mentioned puzzle.     

The costs of socializing with government officials:A new measure of corporate political connections

We construct a new measure to capture corporate political connections, which is based on the amount a corporation spends on socializing with government official...     

A note on transaction costs and the interpretation of dividend drop‐off ratios

In a recent edition of this Journal, Bartholdy and Brown (1999) presented an analysis of the ex‐dividend share price behaviour of shares listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. The authors conclude that their results are consistent with the tax clientele effect (driven by long‐term investors) and that there is little or no support for the short‐term trading hypothesis. Our purpose is to highlight the importance of transaction costs in analyses such as Bartholdy and Brown's. We argue that their results have an alternative interpretation because their analysis excludes the impact of transaction costs. We extend their model to include transaction costs and show that their results are not necessarily inconsistent with the short‐term trading hypothesis. A critical point of our analysis is that, in the presence of transaction costs, the equilibrium drop‐off ratio for dividend strip traders will be less than one, and, in some cases, can be less than the equilibrium drop‐off ratio for long‐term investors.     

Dynamic hedging of single and multi-dimensional options with transaction costs: a generalized utility maximization approach

We propose a new methodology for discrete time dynamic hedging with transaction costs that has three key performance features. First, the methodology can accommodate the use of a wide range of objective functions, from the use of many types of utility functions to the more traditional objectives of hedging error minimization. Second, our methodology can significantly outperform traditional dynamic hedging methodologies across a range of objective functions. Third, our methodology can be applied to both single and multi-dimensional options while analytical methods typically can only be applied to single dimensional options.     

Accounting,management and organizational change: A comparative study of local government

This is a study of management accounting in local government in the context of significant change (managerial, organizational and environmental). The study is based on four case studies: two in Scotland and two in New Zealand. The paper explores two competing theories of organizational life—the instrumental view as espoused by New Public Management proponents, and the socially constructed, as advocated by new institutional theorists. This study locates management accounting at the centre of these changes in New Zealand with a more limited role in the U.K. where there is evidence of institutional isomorphism.     

Bank lending to targets of active takeover attempts: The simultaneous choice of loan maturity,pricing, and security

I investigate bank loans to takeover targets considering the simultaneous decision of pricing, maturity, collateral, and covenants applying Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). Results are largely in line with the Agency Theory of Covenants (ATC) as pricing for new bank debt is lower given greater collateral and covenant protection, consistent with existing literature on public debt. However, poor performing targets demonstrate a positive relationship between pricing and covenants while bank loans to high performers are consistent with ATC predictions. Finally, loan terms tied to ex post observations of merger outcomes suggest banks possess some knowledge of merger outcomes in advance.     

Voluntary disclosure,ownership structure,and corporate debt maturity: A study of French listed firms

This study examines the effect of voluntary disclosure on corporate debt maturity and the role of ownership structure in this effect. For a sample of 440 French listed firms from 2007 to 2013, the empirical results indicate that firms with greater voluntary disclosure have more long-term debt, suggesting that companies benefit from extensive disclosure through greater access to long-maturity debt. This finding is consistent with the evidence that voluntary disclosure provides an efficient monitoring mechanism in firms where long-term debt could insulate firms from lender scrutiny for long periods. The results also show that the positive association between voluntary disclosure and long-term debt is relevant only when the control rights of the controlling shareholders are significantly in excess of cash-flow rights. This finding supports recent work showing that better disclosure policies are viewed more positively by the market in environments where the risk of wealth expropriation by dominant shareholders is higher.     

Capitalized customer acquisition costs and earnings quality: A case study of PhotoWorks,Inc

This case examines issues related to accounting method choice, earnings management, and earnings quality. Specifically, the case examines a company (PhotoWorks, Inc.) that chose the less conservative approach of capitalizing and then amortizing a certain type of advertising expenditure rather than expensing the costs as incurred. The primary purpose of this case is to illustrate the role of judgment in accounting method choice and how it provides potential opportunities for earnings management. The case also allows students to explore the multi-dimensional nature of financial reporting decisions and to develop a greater appreciation for how their accounting coursework relates to important “real-world” issues. After completing this case, students should be able to do the following: (1) describe factors that are involved in accounting method choice and support the appropriateness of an accounting method choice based on a search of the accounting standards; (2) understand and evaluate the effects of accounting method choice on the financial statements; (3) describe the conflicting motivations managers face when deciding on financial accounting methods versus tax accounting methods; (4) explain what is meant by earnings management, factors that motivate managers to manage earnings, methods they can use to manage earnings, and how earnings management affects earnings quality; and (5) describe the role of auditors in analyzing a company’s accounting method choices and in assessing the quality of a company’s earnings.