Internal Capital Markets in Business Groups: Evidence from the Asian Financial Crisis

This paper examines capital reallocation among firms in Korean business groups ( $chaebol$) in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the consequences of this capital reallocation for the investment and performance of $chaebol$ firms. We show that $chaebol$ transferred cash from low‐growth to high‐growth member firms, using cross‐firm equity investments. This capital reallocation allowed chaebol firms with greater investment opportunities to invest more than control firms after the crisis. These firms also showed higher profitability and lower declines in valuation than control firms following the crisis. Our results suggest that chaebol internal capital markets helped them mitigate the negative effects of the Asian crisis on investment and performance.     

Unions and Firm Profits

This study examines the effect of unionization on manufacturing firm profits, extending earlier research by combining industry-level and firm-level measures of unionization. Using several profit measures, we find that quasi-rents from firm investments in intangible assets are a relatively greater source of union profit effects than product market concentration and that union profit effects occur largely in the first 10 percent of firm coverage, suggesting spillover effects on nonunion employees.     

Economic Determinants and Information Environment Effects of Earnouts: New Insights from SFAS 141(R)

Contingent considerations (earnouts) in acquisition agreements provide sellers with future payments conditional on meeting certain conditions. Prior research provides evidence that acquiring firms use earnouts to minimize agency costs associated with acquisitions. Using earnout fair value information, recently mandated by SFAS 141(R), we provide new insights into the economic determinants to include earnout provisions in acquisition agreements, including motivations to resolve moral hazard and adverse selection problems, bridge valuation gaps, and retain target firm managers. We document variations in initial earnout fair value estimates and earnout fair value adjustments that correspond with these underlying motivations. We also provide evidence that target managers stay longer with the firm after the acquisition when earnouts are included primarily to retain target managers. Finally, we demonstrate that earnout fair value adjustments required by SFAS 141(R) provide valuable information to market participants and are negatively associated with the likelihood of contemporaneous and future goodwill impairments.     

Real-Time Model Uncertainty in the United States: The Fed, 1996–2003

We study 30 vintages of FRB/US, the principal macro-model used by the Federal Reserve Board staff for forecasting and policy analysis. We document the surprisingly large and consequential changes in model properties that occurred during the period from July 1996 to November 2003 and compute optimal Taylor-type rules for each vintage. Model uncertainty is shown to be a substantial problem; the efficacy of purportedly optimal policy rules should not be taken on faith. We also find that previous findings that simple rules are robust to model uncertainty may be an overly sanguine conclusion.     

Taxes and the Efficiency-Rent Extraction Trade-off

This paper presents an adverse selection model in which progressive taxation enhances productive efficiency by encouraging a principal (buyer) to be less aggressive in contracting with an agent (seller). Wary of padded cost budgets, the buyer employs a hurdle‐rate procurement policy. With a low cost hurdle, the buyer keeps greater profits when transactions are undertaken but trade occurs less often. While the hurdle is unaffected by a flat tax, a progressive tax tilts the buyer's preference: the buyer's benefit from a lower hurdle becomes less pronounced, since the marginal increase in his profits is muted in after‐tax terms. The result is increased trade and the possibility of Pareto improvements.     

SEIGNORAGE AND EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION

Inflation differentials in Europe have narrowed substantially since the inception of the European Monetary System in 1979. However, their persistence after more than a decade raises the question of why these differentials are so difficult to eliminate. Some European Community countries systematically use seignorage—financing government expenditures with money creation—while others do not. This increases the difficulty of achieving the convergence of monetary policies and inflation rates required for irrevocably fixed exchange rates in Europe. This paper, utilizing a model of government finance that minimizes the social cost of financing government expenditures, examines monetary finance in the European Community. It rejects soundly the social cost minimization model of seignorage collection.     

ORGANIC FOOD AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Over the past 50 years, the rapid transformation of agricultural technology has provided the benefits of lower prices and a smaller share of income spent on food. Developing and applying synthetic chemicals was instrumental in lowering costs of production and in increasing yields. Conventional agriculture today relies on substantial use of synthetic chemicals as key inputs. This leads to increasing concern over negative externalities, including risks to both human health and the environment. In response to these concerns, organic food has emerged as a rapidly expanding industry. This paper examines the role of organic agriculture and other low-input farming methods more sustainable within the context of policies designed to reduce negative externalities from using synthetic chemicals.     

How Do Crises Spread? Evidence from Accessible and Inaccessible Stock Indices

We provide empirical evidence that stock market crises are spread globally through asset holdings of international investors. By separating emerging market stocks into two categories, namely, those that are eligible for purchase by foreigners (accessible) and those that are not (inaccessible), we estimate and compare the degree to which accessible and inaccessible stock index returns co‐move with crisis country index returns. Our results show greater co‐movement during high volatility periods, especially for accessible stock index returns, suggesting that crises spread through the asset holdings of international investors rather than through changes in fundamentals.