Progressive taxes and firm births

Tax reform proposals in the spirit of the “flat tax” model typically aim to reduce three parameters: the average tax burden, the progressivity of the tax schedule, and the complexity of the tax code. We explore the implications of changes in these parameters for entrepreneurial activity, measured by counts of firm births. The Swiss fiscal system offers sufficient intra-national variation in tax codes to allow us to estimate such effects with considerable precision. We find that high average taxes and complicated tax codes depress firm birth rates, while tax progressivity per se promotes firm births. The latter result supports the existence of an insurance effect from progressive corporate income taxes for risk-averse entrepreneurs. However, implied elasticities with respect to the level and complexity of corporate taxes are an order of magnitude larger than elasticities with respect to the progressivity of tax schedules.     

Does fair value accounting for non-financial assets pass the market test?

The choice between fair value and historical cost accounting is the subject of long-standing controversy among accounting academics and regulators. Nevertheless, the market-based evidence on this subject is limited. We study the choice of fair value versus historical cost accounting for non-financial assets in a setting where market forces rather than regulators determine the outcome. In general, we find a very limited use of fair value accounting. However, the observed variation is consistent with market forces determining the choice. Fair value accounting is used when reliable fair value estimates are available at a lower cost and when they convey information about operating performance. For example, with very few exceptions, firms’ managers commit to historical cost accounting for plant and equipment. Our findings contribute to the policy debate by documenting the market solution to one of the central questions in the accounting literature. Our findings indicate that, despite its conceptual merits, fair value is unlikely to become the primary valuation method for illiquid non-financial assets on a voluntary basis.     

Dynamic Financial System: Complexity,Fragility and Regulatory Principles

A financial system improves the allocation of real resources and enhances the performance of the production economy, but these benefits are offset in part by the risk of financial distress and the associated deadweight loss resulting from bankruptcy costs. We argue that “tiers” of financial claims increase complexity and fragility of the financial network. In equilibrium, the financial system grows relative to the real economy as the allocation of funds and risks becomes more sophisticated and as more financial claims are tiered. Growth is limited by the risk of a tiered, complex financial network and by the need to set aside additional capital as the financial sector grows. We discuss several sources of fragility in the financial system. We propose that regulators should limit the breaks in the system and do more to improve the resiliency of the network and less on individual issues that are only symptoms of fundamental problems of a network. We advocate a market based system of regulation in which market participants regulate each other, to a degree. In order for this to be feasible, the financial network must be organized according to three principles: trading transparency, competitive markets and competitive regulators, and incentive alignment of participants. Insofar as these regulatory approaches are successful in limiting network fragility, capital requirements can be reduced. Regulators should keep in mind this tradeoff between capital and regulation. With regard to regulatory policy, regulators should let the three principles be their guide in adapting to the evolving financial system rather than implementing narrowly conceived regulations that are quickly outmoded.     

Bounds on the estimation error in the chain ladder method

Buchwalder et al. (2006) have illustrated that there are different approaches for the derivation of an estimate for the parameter estimation error in the distribution-free chain ladder reserving method. In this paper, we demonstrate that these approaches provide estimates that are close to each other for typical parameters. This is carried out by proving upper and lower bounds.     

Utility Functions

Abstract

This article is a self-contained survey of utility functions and some of their applications. Throughout the paper the theory is illustrated by three examples: exponential utility functions, power utility functions of the first kind (such as quadratic utility functions), and power utility functions of the second kind (such as the logarithmic utility function). The postulate of equivalent expected utility can be used to replace a random gain by a fixed amount and to determine a fair premium for claims to be insured, even if the insurer’s wealth without the new contract is a random variable itself. Then n companies (or economic agents) with random wealth are considered. They are interested in exchanging wealth to improve their expected utility. The family of Pareto optimal risk exchanges is characterized by the theorem of Borch. Two specific solutions are proposed. The first, believed to be new, is based on the synergy potential; this is the largest amount that can be withdrawn from the system without hurting any company in terms of expected utility. The second is the economic equilibrium originally proposed by Borch. As by-products, the option-pricing formula of Black-Scholes can be derived and the Esscher method of option pricing can be explained.     

Optimal dividend policies for piecewise-deterministic compound Poisson risk models

This paper considers the optimal dividend payment problem in piecewise-deterministic compound Poisson risk models. The objective is to maximize the expected discounted dividend payout up to the time of ruin. We provide a comparative study in this general framework of both restricted and unrestricted payment schemes, which were only previously treated separately in certain special cases of risk models in the literature. In the case of restricted payment scheme, the value function is shown to be a classical solution of the corresponding HJB equation, which in turn leads to an optimal restricted payment policy known as the threshold strategy. In the case of unrestricted payment scheme, by solving the associated integro-differential quasi-variational inequality, we obtain the value function as well as an optimal unrestricted dividend payment scheme known as the barrier strategy. When claim sizes are exponentially distributed, we provide easily verifiable conditions under which the threshold and barrier strategies are optimal restricted and unrestricted dividend payment policies, respectively. The main results are illustrated with several examples, including a new example concerning regressive growth rates.