Distributional impacts of changing from a gasoline tax to a vehicle-mile tax for light vehicles: A case study of Oregon

A vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) tax is frequently mentioned as viable alternative to a fuel tax for collecting highway users fees from light vehicles. Both a static model and a regression based model are used here to assess the distributional impacts of a switch from a fuel tax to a VMT tax for the state of Oregon. The VMT tax is found to be slightly more regressive than the fuel tax and rural households are found to actually benefit relative to urban households under a VMT tax. Two alternative VMT structures that might increase incentives to use more fuel efficient vehicles are provided, but both are found to be even more regressive than a flat VMT tax.     

Accounting complexity, misreporting, and the consequences of misreporting

I examine whether accounting complexity in the area of revenue recognition increases the probability of restating reported revenue. I measure revenue recognition complexity using the number of words and recognition methods from the revenue recognition disclosure in the 10-K and a factor score based on the number of words and methods. Tests reveal that revenue recognition complexity increases the probability of revenue restatements, and these restatements are the result of both intentional and unintentional misreporting. Furthermore, complexity moderates the consequences of restatement—lower incidence of AAERs, less negative restatement announcement returns, and lower subsequent CEO turnover—suggesting that stakeholders of the firm consider accounting complexity when responding to misreporting.     

High yield spreads,real economic activity,and the financial accelerator

We study the leading properties of 30 US high yield spreads for economic growth between 1996 and 2012 and show that they disappeared in the second half of the 2000s. Our empirical findings demonstrate the unreliability of high yield spreads as leading indicators and cast doubts on the existence of a strong and functioning financial accelerator in recent years.     

Economic freedom and the mispricing of single-state municipal bond closed-end funds

The Economic Freedom of North America Index (EFI) is a measure of the state-level institutional characteristics that promote economic activity. We use this index as a proxy for the degree of local market segmentation and test the hypothesis that single-state, municipal bond closed-end fund mispricing can be partially explained by a state’s EFI value. Using panel data analysis we find that EFI is significant in explaining observed variability in fund mispricing.     

Conservatism measures that control for the effects of economic rents on stock returns

Recent studies show that regression-based estimates of accounting conservatism reflect both differences in the asymmetric recognition of bad news and differences in asset composition. In particular, a firm’s market value and returns reflect both assets-in-place and expected future rents, while book values tend to reflect only assets-in-place. We propose two tests that remove the effect of asset composition on cross-sectional comparisons of accounting conservatism. First, a test based on a ratio of regression coefficients allows for valid cross-sectional comparisons of conservatism relative to overall news recognition. Second, in some cases, researchers can separately identify and make cross-sectional comparisons of the fraction of good news recognized and the fraction of bad news recognized. The estimates in this second scenario use a regression of earnings on returns interacted with a book-to-market ratio. We validate our model by deriving and testing several predictions based on it.     

Assessing the Probability of Bankruptcy

We assess whether two popular accounting-based measures, Altmans (1968) Z-Score and Ohlsons (1980) O-Score, effectively summarize publicly-available information about the probability of bankruptcy. We compare the relative information content of these Scores to a market-based measure of the probability of bankruptcy that we develop based on the Black–Scholes–Merton option-pricing model, BSM-Prob. Our tests show that BSM-Prob provides significantly more information than either of the two accounting-based measures. This finding is robust to various modifications of Z-Score and O-Score, including updating the coefficients, making industry adjustments, and decomposing them into their lagged levels and changes. We recommend that researchers use BSM-Prob instead of Z-Score and O-Score in their studies and provide the SAS code to calculate BSM-Prob.     

Strategies for Opes's pricing dicisions

A cross-section study of 116 sectors of U.K. manufacturing shows that the proportion of females employed in each industry can be explained by variables which stand for the type of work performed in that industry. Females tend to be more represented them men in sectors where work is less heavy and dangerous, but also less qualified, and where the number of part-time jobs prevail. Earnings differentials between non-competing groups (women and men, manual and non-manual workers) are shown to be remarkably similar in the entire manufacturing sector. The level of wages in each industry appears to explain a large part of the variation of salaries.     

Fuel inventory and price relationships in the U.S. electric power sector under regulatory and market change

Long-run relationships among coal inventories at U.S. electric power plants, corporate bond rates and coal, natural gas, and electricity prices are estimated over the period July 1976 to October 2014. Tests for constancy of the long-run relationships show periods of instability which coincide with major regulatory events in the electric power sector. Deregulation of the natural gas and electricity markets are likely sources of instability for the period mid-1994 to mid-2001. Additionally, inventory behavior may have had a smoothing effect over instability caused by natural gas prices during the recent U.S. shale boom. Policy makers should be aware that altering the regulatory environment can result in considerable fluctuations in how firms’ inventory decisions interact with input and output markets and opportunity costs in the long run.