Fair Value Accounting and Debt Contracting: Evidence from Adoption of SFAS 159

We examine how fair value accounting affects debt contract design, specifically the use and definition of financial covenants in private loan contracts. Using SFAS 159 adoption as our setting, we find that a small but significant proportion of loans (14.5%) modify covenant definitions to exclude the effects of SFAS 159 fair values. Only a limited number of these modifications exclude assets elected at fair value (less than 7%), while all exclude liabilities elected at fair value. Notably, we document that covenant definition modification is unassociated with ex ante fair value elections. We find that covenant definition modification positively varies with common incentive problems attributed to fair value accounting and negatively varies with benefits attributed to fair value accounting. Our results suggest that fair value accounting is not uniformly detrimental for debt contracting and fair value adjustments are included when they are most likely to improve performance measurement.     

指尖上的医疗

创建HealthTap时,我希望让人们可以随时随地获得有关医疗和医生的信息。为此,我专注于两件事情：信任和即刻的满足感。而这两件事总是莫私其妙地被医疗界遗忘。     

After-market liquidity and IPOs underpricing： Evidence from Shari＇ah and non Shari＇ah-based firms

The underpricing of initial public offerings （IPOs） is generally explained with asymmetric information and risk. We complement these traditional explanations with a new theory proposed by Ellul and Pagano （2006） where investors worry also about the after-market illiquidity that may result from asymmetric information after the IPO. The less liquid the after-market is expected to be, the larger will be the IPO underpricing. The samples are the 41 IPOs carried out between 2001-2005. The samples are 7 Shari＇ah-based firms and 34 non Shariah-based firms. Shariah-based firms are those included in Jakarta Islamic Index （JII）, at least one period （one semester）. Regression results show that the relationship between after-market liquidity and underpricing is insignificant unless we use trading frequency as proxy for liquidity for non Shariah-based firms.     

酒店忠诚计划：精明者的游戏五花八门的忠诚计划，是商务等级兑现的窝心，还是弃之可惜的伪实惠？

关于酒店忠诚计划的吸引力有多高,你总能得到截然相反的答案。支持者着迷于这些汁划所带来的客房升级与免费住宿,以及背后所代表的商务与社会层级地位;冷漠者则批评这些卡片令曾经精明的旅人对价格变得愚钝,对酒店的过失亦过分宽容。