An index of growth due to depreciation*

Abstract. While factors such as inflation, technological change and growth often have been discussed in connection with the adequacy of provisions for depreciation under a historical cost model, there is another dimension to the capital maintenance problem and it concerns the multiplier effect of depreciation. When an amount equal to depreciation is reinvested, a firm's productive capacity tends to increase. Reinvestment of depreciation also increases a firm's financial capital if book depreciation is more accelerated than economic depreciation. Based on a model developed by Ijiri (1967), this paper derives an index of this growth due to depreciation. The index estimates a bias in conventional depreciation methods that has been overlooked in the literature on the subject. This bias has implications for inflation accounting because if conventional depreciation methods have a built-in growth bias, adjustments for inflation may be a type of double counting. A second implication mentioned concerns the bias in accounting rates of return. Résumé. Bien que des facteurs tels l'inflation, les changements technologiques et la croissance ont souvent été examinés à propos de la pertinence des provisions pour dépréciation dans le cadre du modèle au coût historique, un autre aspect du problème de préservation du capital subsiste et il concerne l'effet multiplicateur de l'amortissement. Lorsqu'un montant égal à l'amortissement est réinvesti, la capacité d'exploitation de la firme a tendance à s'accroître. Le réinvestissement de l'amortissement fait aussi augmenter le capital de la firme si l'amortissement comptable est plus accéléré que la dépréciation économique. En se basant sur un modèle élaboré par Ijiri (1967), cet article dérive un indice de cette croissance attribuable à l'amortissement. L'indice estime un biais des méthodes traditionnelles, qui a été négligé dans les recherches consacrées au sujet. Ce biais a des implications en comptabilité des effets de l'inflation, car si les méthodes d'amortissement traditionnelles comportent implicitement ce biais de croissance, les redressements relatifs à l'inflation peuvent être assimilés à un double comptage. Une deuxième conséquence est signalée, soit le biais relatif aux taux de rendement comptable.     

Return,Risk, and Yield: Evidence from Ex Ante Data

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between return and yield in the context of ex ante data from The Value Line Investment Survey and by examining the role of dividends as a proxy for risk. The use of ex ante data should substantially reduce the confounding of tax and information effects that has affected earlier studies. Heteroscedasticity is detected in the after-tax CAPM and found to be negatively related to yield and positively related to beta. Maximum likelihood methods are used to correct for heteroscedasticity and generate efficient coefficient estimates. Using data for each of the years 1973 through 1983, there is an overall positive relationship between expected return and yield. However, coefficient estimates of yield are highly variable from year to year.     

Reinforcement Learning and Savings Behavior

We show that individual investors over‐extrapolate from their personal experience when making savings decisions. Investors who experience particularly rewarding outcomes from 401(k) saving—a high average and/or low variance return—increase their 401(k) savings rate more than investors who have less rewarding experiences. This finding is not driven by aggregate time‐series shocks, income effects, rational learning about investing skill, investor fixed effects, or time‐varying investor‐level heterogeneity that is correlated with portfolio allocations to stock, bond, and cash asset classes. We discuss implications for the equity premium puzzle and interventions aimed at improving household financial outcomes.     

The Effect of Audit Quality on Earnings Management*

This study examines the relation between audit quality and earnings management. Consistent with prior research, we treat audit quality as a dichotomous variable and assume that Big Six auditors are of higher quality than non-Big Six auditors. Earnings management is captured by discretionary accruals that are estimated using a cross-sectional version of the Jones 1991 model. Prior literature suggests that auditors are more likely to object to management's accounting choices that increase earnings (as opposed to decrease earnings) and that auditors are more likely to be sued when they are associated with financial statements that overstate earnings (as compared to understate earnings). Therefore, we hypothesize that clients of non-Big Six auditors report discretionary accruals that increase income relatively more than the discretionary accruals reported by clients of Big Six auditors. This hypothesis is supported by evidence from a sample of 10,379 Big Six and 2,179 non-Big Six firm years. Specifically, clients of non-Big Six auditors report discretionary accruals that are, on average, 1.5-2.1 percent of total assets higher than the discretionary accruals reported by clients of Big Six auditors. Also, consistent with earnings management, we find that the mean and median of the absolute value of discretionary accruals are greater for firms with non-Big Six auditors. This result also indicates that lower audit quality is associated with more “accounting flexibility”.