Detecting Earnings Management: A New Approach

This paper provides a new approach to test for accrual‐based earnings management. Our approach exploits the inherent property of accrual accounting that any accrual‐based earnings management in one period must reverse in another period. If the researcher has priors concerning the timing of the reversal, incorporating these priors can significantly improve the power and specification of tests for earnings management. Our results indicate that tests incorporating reversals increase test power by around 40% and provide a robust solution for mitigating model misspecification arising from correlated omitted variables.     

Market Valuation and Equity Ownership Structure: The Case of Agency Conflict Regimes

This paper provides further evidence on the link between the firm's performance and the distribution of the common shares between insiders, blockholders and institutions. We endogenize the functional form of the market valuecommon equity structure relationship by using a switching regression methodology. This allows us to observe four distinct ownership structure types that constitute different agency conflict regimes. We provide evidence that supports the notion that investors recognize the existence of such regimes and assess market values differently depending on the type of agency regime the firm operates in. We find that firms with low insider stakes and low blockholder stakes and firms with high insider stakes and high blockholder stakes have the highest agency costs of free cash flow. We also find that the effect of the ownership variables on market values differs across regimes and that there are differences in the monitoring effectiveness of institutional holders and blockholders.     

Reaching a Global Agreement on Climate Change: What are the Obstacles?

A successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol was supposed to be wrapped up in Copenhagen in December 2009, but negotiations are now expected to extend through the South African UNFCCC conference in 2011 since the Copenhagen talks failed to yield a binding agreement. To reach a comprehensive deal, major gaps between developing and developed countries must be narrowed. The gaps include the character of common but differentiated responsibilities, financial support, technology transfer, and trade subsidies and sanctions. The paper concludes with some options and recommendations.     

PATENT DAMAGES AND SPATIAL COMPETITION*

We analyze price competition between a spatially differentiated product patentee and an imitator anticipating probabilistic future patent damages. We compare the performance of three damage regimes. The ‘reasonable royalty’ regime, which yields symmetric equilibrium pricing, maximizes static welfare and yields the highest innovation incentives when patent enforcement is nearly certain. The ‘lost profits’ regime, which may deter infringement, yields the highest innovation incentives when patent enforcement is less‐than‐certain and products are sufficiently valuable. The ‘unjust enrichment’ regime yields low static efficiency and low innovation incentives. We offer new insights into the ‘hypothetical negotiation’ that courts use to construct reasonable royalties.     

The Impetus for (and Limited Power of) Business Self‐Regulation: The Example of Advergames

When people complain, government agencies often respond. When regulations are threatened, businesses often offer reassurances that the problems can be handled with a self‐regulation code. However, past analyses of the power of self‐regulation find that while companies' voluntary adherence to self‐defined guidelines may effect some change in the activities of some companies, the inherent limitations of self‐regulation in the United States may restrict its ability to actually halt or control the undesired practices of others. The recent response by major food manufacturers and marketers to criticism of online games is an example of this mix.     

Comparative study of phosphate and non-phosphate detergents

A comparison of three different detergents was made by evaluating their properties of soil removal, soil redeposition and calcium carbonate deposition. The detergents included a phosphate granular detergent, a non-phosphate, carbonate built granular detergent and an unbuilt liquid detergent. The local water conditions were moderately hard and clay type soils were used. Detergency was evaluated on the basis of both visual and instrumental colour changes. In effecting soil removal, clay stained fabrics laundered with the phosphate detergent retained only a small amount of soil, while fabrics laundered with the two non-phosphate detergents showed heavier staining. In preventing soil redeposition, the phosphate detergent produced almost no visible redeposition; the unbuilt and carbonate built detergents ranked correspondingly lower. In assessing calcium carbonate deposition, the phosphate and unbuilt detergents showed little or no change, while the carbonate detergent continued to build up deposits with laundering. In summary, the phosphate detergent ranked highest in overall performance, with correspondingly lesser performance from the unbuilt and carbonate detergents.     

Comparison of sensory evaluation of aromatic rice by consumers in East and South-east Asia

Quality of aromatic rice was compared by sensory evaluation with ordinary bland rice. Hieri, one of the varieties of aromatic rice planted in Japan was accepted by Indonesian people as well as the persons living in Japan, who are from South-east Asia. Basmati, which has a strong aroma, was nor accepted by Japanese people who have not eaten aromatic rice before. They have the same degree of preference for Jasmine rice as Hieri. This research confirmed that the quality of Hieri is good.     

Buyer–Supplier Relationships and the Stakeholder Theory of Capital Structure

Firms in bilateral relationships are likely to produce or procure unique products—especially when they are in durable goods industries. Consistent with the arguments of Titman and Titman and Wessels, such firms are likely to maintain lower leverage. We compile a database of firms' principal customers (those that account for at least 10% of sales or are otherwise considered important for business) from the Business Information File of Compustat and find results consistent with the predictions of this theory.