Agency hazards and alliance portfolios

Prior research over several decades has catalogued many positive motives underlying firms' decisions to engage in joint ventures and other forms of alliances. In this empirical analysis, we investigate whether agency problems brought about by the separation of ownership and control also stimulate the development of firms' joint venture portfolios. By focusing on joint ventures, as opposed to diversification in general or acquisitions, we address the recent debate on agency theory's domain. Results from a sample of U.S. manufacturing firms' alliance portfolios offer supporting evidence, and comparable findings are obtained for international and domestic joint ventures. Agency hazards are also found to bring about extensions of firms' nonequity alliance portfolios in both the international and domestic settings. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Payment system disruptions and the federal reserve following September 11, 2001

The monetary and payment system consequences of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Federal Reserve's response are reviewed. Interbank payment disruptions appear to be a central feature of many US banking crises, and interbank payment disruptions seem likely to recur. Federal Reserve credit extension following September 11 succeeded in massively increasing the supply of banks’ balances to satisfy the disruption-induced increase in demand and thereby ameliorate the effects of the shock. Relatively benign banking conditions helped make Fed credit policy manageable. An interbank payment disruption that coincided with less-favorable banking conditions could be more difficult to manage, given current daylight credit policies. Paying interest on reserves would facilitate improvements in daylight credit policy.     

Estimating the Euler equation for output

New Keynesian macroeconomic models have generally emphasized that expectations of future output are a key factor in determining current output. The theoretical motivation for such forward-looking behavior relies on a straightforward generalization of the well-known Euler equation for consumption. In this paper, we use maximum likelihood and generalized method of moments (GMM) methods to explore the empirical importance of output expectations. We find little evidence that rational expectations of future output help determine current output, especially after taking into account the small-sample bias in GMM.     

The valuation relevance of R&D expenditures: Time series evidence

The literature on the valuation relevance of R&D investments is based primarily on cross-sectional regressions or panel data regressions with time and firm (or industry) fixed effects such that the parameters relating R&D to market value are cross-sectionally constant. In an alternative approach, this paper investigates the value relevance of R&D investment using an earnings-based time series valuation model. Model parameters are estimated for each firm separately. In contradistinction to the results obtained from cross-sectional and fixed effects panel models, this study finds weak empirical support at best for the value relevance of R&D expenditures at the firm level.     

Audit personnel salaries and audit quality

This study examines the relation between audit personnel salaries and office-level audit quality. We measure audit personnel salaries at the associate, senior, and manager ranks for Big 4 audit offices from 2004 to 2013, using unique individual-auditor-level data obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor. We find that offices that pay lower salaries have a higher percentage of clients that experience restatements. In related analyses, we also find lower levels of audit quality when audit employees are paid less, relative to other lines of service in accounting firms. Finally, we document positive and significant associations between salary and fees, suggesting that audit offices pass some of the cost of higher labor onto their clients. Overall, our findings provide important initial evidence on the role of audit salary and its relation to audit quality and audit fees.     

The management of technological innovation in the machine tool industry: a cross-national regional survey of Britain and Switzerland

Abstract
The research was undertaken during 1983 to find out why a country such as Switzerland has been able to manage innovation in a mature industry, such as machine tools, much more successfully than Britain. The methodology used was by structured interviews of Managing Directors in a sample of firms in the two important machine tool regions of Berne and Yorkshire/Humberside. The results cover the main types of innovation in products and processes, the reasons for innovation and the problems which were encountered by the companies visited. We found that the Swiss firms were strong on product innovation. The most important innovation was the introduction of computer numerical control (CNC), and the Swiss firms had on average introduced this earlier than the British firms and it accounted for a larger proportion of their turnover. The main problem for firms in both countries was in adjusting to upstream developments in electronic controls. The Swiss had better downstream market links with their customers who were mostly in foreign countries. Some British firms were handicapped by being part of company groups and used public sector grants for their innovation, whereas the largely independent Swiss firms carried out more self-financing.     

Performance deviations and acquisition premiums: The impact of CEO celebrity on managerial risk‐taking

Research summary: This article draws on identity control theory and a study of acquisition premiums to explore how CEO celebrity status and financial performance relative to aspirations affect firm risk behavior. The study finds that celebrity CEOs tend to pay smaller premiums for target firms, but these tendencies change when prior firm performance deviates from the industry average returns, thereby leading these CEOs to pay higher premiums. The study also finds that the premiums tend to be even larger when celebrity CEOs have more recently attained celebrity status. Taken together, these findings contribute to identity control theory and CEO celebrity literatures by suggesting that celebrity status is a double‐edged sword and that the internalization of celebrity status by CEOs strongly influences the decision‐making of CEOs. Managerial summary: The purpose of this article is to examine how CEO celebrity status and financial performance relative to aspirations affect the size of acquisition premiums. The study finds that celebrity CEOs tend to pay smaller premiums for target firms. However, when celebrity CEOs' prior firm performance is either better or worse than the industry average, these CEOs pay higher premiums. This situation is exacerbated when the CEO has only recently been crowned a celebrity. In effect, these CEOs feel great pressure to match the inflated performance expectations that come with celebrity status. These findings suggest that being a celebrity is a double‐edged sword. The implication here is that CEOs who have recently been crowned a celebrity should be aware of these pressures and cope accordingly. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relevance of culture in studies of leadership: ignored or dismissed?

Asia Pacific Journal of Management - Until recently, conclusions drawn about leadership have been made from a decidedly Western perspective, primarily based on theory developed in the U.S. using...     

The Year in Review: Economics at the Antitrust Division, 2020–2021

Challenging anticompetitive acquisitions of nascent competitors is a top priority of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. It is especially important that competition agencies remain vigilant of such acquisitions in platform markets, where indirect network effects and other market forces tend to preserve the status quo at the expense of smaller, more innovative rivals and potentially final consumers. This article discusses two such attempted acquisitions: (1) Visa’s acquisition of technology firm Plaid that threatened to disrupt Visa’s monopoly power in online debit; and (2) Sabre’s acquisition of Farelogix, which is a firm that allows airlines to connect directly to travel agencies and thereby disintermediates Sabre and other global distribution systems.