Financial Contracting and Leverage Induced Over- and Under-Investment Incentives

This paper investigates the effects of seniority rules and restrictive dividend convenants on the over- and under-investment incentives associated with risky debt. We show that increasing seniority of new debt decreases the incidence of under-investment but increases over-investment, and vice versa. Under symmetric information, the optimal seniority rule is to give new debtholders first claim on a new project without recourse to existing assets (i.e., project financing). Under asymmetric information, the optimal debt contract requires equating the expected return to new debtholders in the default state to the new project's cash flow in the same rate. If this is not possible, the optimal seniority rule calls for strict subordination of new debt if the expected cash flow in default is small and full seniority if it is large. With regard to dividend convenants, we show that their effect depends on whether or not dividend payments are conditioned on future investments. When they are unconditioned, allowing more dividends increases the under-investment incentive. In contrast, conditional dividends decrease the underinvestment incentive and increase the over-investment incentive.     

Debt and Input Misallocation

We investigate a class of agency costs of debt that arise because debt financing affects the firm's incentives to use inputs efficiently. A methodology for estimating this class of costs is presented and applied to a major industry, air transport. Our results are consistent with agency models that predict a decrease in efficiency as the debt increases. A part of the loss of efficiency that we identify is attributable to the greater use by levered firms of inputs that can be monitored and are collateralizable.     

Two Pitfalls of Linearization Methods

This paper illustrates two types of pitfalls when linearization methods are improperly applied. First, if we linearize the constraints before deriving the optimality conditions, the derived conditions are not correct up to first order. Second, even when we obtain the behavior of the economy that is correct to the first order, applying this behavior to welfare implications may lead to incorrect results. We also review different ways to avoid those pitfalls.     

Productivity and Performance Indicators in Enterprise Agreements

The design and implementation of performance measurement systems is a major interest of management accountants. In recent years many organisations have made enterprise agreements with their employees, often specijjing performance indicators on which to base wage increases. This paper explains how performance indicators are used in enterprise agreements and considers alternative definitions of indicators and their limitations. It argues that performance indicators in enterprise agreements should be consistent with wider organisational performance measurement systems, particularly those having a strategic focus.     

危机后的金融体系框架——全球金融改革及其对于韩国的意义

在设计“危机后金融体系架构”时，我们会想到三个支柱：金融产业、金融市场（尤其是资本市场）以及金融监管。在讨论架构问题时，我将首先将注意力集中于全球金融市场，其次，也更重要的是，如何建设韩国的金融体系以反映它的经济和金融市场特性。我希望，即使将本文中的“韩国”替换为“中国”，它仍然能够为考虑“最适合于中国的中国金融体系架构”提供一个框架。我们必须记住，在全球趋势与国内特征之间取得平衡远比看起来困难。不过，无论它有多么困难，这都是我们必须努力的方向。从政策制定者的角度来看，最具有挑战性的议题就是处理系统性风险。各个国家的系统性风险来源是不同的．因此每个国家都必须建立一个能够最好地识别与管理其系统性风险的监管范式，尤其是宏观审慎性监管。     

MEASURING PRICE ELASTICITY OF SECTORIAL IMPORTS

Previous published studies have estimated the long‐run cointegrating relationship to infer the price elasticity of imports, but a stable long‐run cointegrating relationship might not be detected in the data, especially in the case of sectoral data. This paper develops a method to estimate the price elasticity of imports based on a vector autoregression model, which can be applied when a stable long‐run cointegration relationship does not exist. The methods developed in past studies and our method are applied to Korean sectoral imports data to illustrate the usefulness of our method.     

A study on the subjective symptoms of the ageing process in middle-aged men: effects of socio-economic status,diet and health care behaviour*

In order to investigate the factors influencing the ageing process of middle-aged men, different environmental variables including socio-economic status, diet, smoking and drinking were studied as possible determinants of the ageing process. Six hundred and forty-seven Korean men over 40 years of age were studied. Frequency, chi-square, t-test, and stepwise multiple regression analyses were employed to identify the significant variables. As a result of the analyses, occupation and smoking were found to be the most influential factors. In short, those who did not refrain from smoking and had professional jobs experienced early symptoms in the ageing process.     

Accounting for Income Taxes: Early Adoption Issues

This study investigates whether the revised AASB 1020 Income Taxes was adopted early by Top 100 publicly listed companies in Australia between 2000 and 2004. We found that only three of the companies adopted the revised standard before its implementation date of 1 January 2005. Interviews with senior company representatives indicated that the three companies had quite different reasons for early adoption. Non-early-adopting companies had considered that the revised standard would not make a material difference to their reporting results. Tax consolidations and the impending international financial reporting standards were regarded as more important issues.