Vitamin supplementation practices: health/nutrition education implications

A sample of 310 supplement users, 216 nonsupplement users and 247 inconsistent (user/nonuser) supplementers were followed for 18 months to examine the consistency of supplementation. Since supplementation is often not required for a healthy diet, factors associated with persistence or stability of supplement use have implications for appropriate health/nutrition education. Consistent supplementation (at least 18 months' duration) was associated (P < 0·01) with (i) female sex, (ii) health beliefs in the efficacy of supplementation, (iii) seeking health information from physicians, nurses, dietitians and nutritionists, (iv) using periodicals, TV/radio and books for sources of nutrition information, (v) older age, (vi) higher income and (vii) higher levels of education. Nonusers were more likely to attribute health to chance on the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control scale, and inconsistent users were more likely to have experienced a change in employment status, relocation to another town/city and a higher number of ‘change’ events in the previous 18 months. Based on the characteristics of the consistent supplement user, ‘academic controversy’ may be an effective educational strategy to employ, if changes in supplementation attitudes and beliefs are desired.     

Taking the Long Way Home: U.S. Tax Evasion and Offshore Investments in U.S. Equity and Debt Markets

We empirically investigate one form of illegal investor‐level tax evasion and its effect on foreign portfolio investment. In particular, we examine a form of round‐tripping tax evasion in which U.S. individuals hide funds in entities located in offshore tax havens and then invest those funds in U.S. securities markets. Employing Becker's ( 1968 ) economic theory of crime, we identify the tax evasion component by examining how foreign portfolio investment varies with changes in the incentives to evade and the risks of detection. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical evidence of investor‐level tax evasion affecting cross‐border equity and debt investment.     

Introducing Recursive Partitioning for Financial Classification: The Case of Financial Distress

The purpose of this study is to present a new classification procedure, Recursive Partitioning Algorithm (RPA), for financial analysis and to compare it with discriminant analysis within the context of firm financial distress. RPA is a computerized, nonparametric technique based on pattern recognition which has attributes of both the classical univariate classification approach and multivariate procedures. RPA is found to outperform discriminant analysis in most original sample and holdout comparisons. We also observe that additional information can be derived by assessing both RPA and discriminant analysis results.     

Do Immigrants Have Lower Unionization Propensities than Natives?

Using a unique source of data-the April 1983 Current Population Survey-this paper examines unionization behavior by nativity. The results indicate that the unionization propensity of immigrants is similar to that of natives, even when controlling for individual, regional, and industrial characteristics. The explanation lies in the lower unionization propensity of all recent entrants to the U.S. labor force, whether immigrant or native.     

TAX REVISIONS OF 2004 AND PRO SPORTS TEAM OWNERSHIP

Tax law revisions of 2004 altered the “roster depreciation allowance” enjoyed by pro sports team owners. Supporters claimed this would practically eliminate costly legal oversight by the IRS and, ultimately, increase owner tax bills. Government officials and leagues remained silent on team value impacts but outside analysts argued they would rise by 5%. We model this policy change and investigate it empirically. Supporters in Congress were absolutely correct that owner tax payments should increase but outside analysts underestimated team value increases by half. No wonder Major League Baseball and the National Football League favored the revision. (JEL D21, G38, H25, L83)     

Transactions Costs and Holding Periods for Common Stocks

Amihud and Mendelson (1986) and Constantinides (1986) provide a theoretical basis for the proposition that assets with higher transactions costs are held by investors for longer holding periods, and vice versa. We examine average holding periods and bid-ask spreads for Nasdaq stocks from 1983 through 1991 and for New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks from 1975 through 1989 and find strong evidence that, as predicted, the length of investors' holding periods is related to bid-ask spreads. We also find that the relation between holding periods and bid-ask spreads is much stronger on Nasdaq, where spreads are larger, than on the NYSE, where spreads are smaller.