Decision Strategy and Structure in Households: A “Groups” Perspective

From a practical perspective, (arguably) most consumer decisions are not made in isolation of the households in which consumers are inserted, yet we commonly treat them econometrically as if they were. The purpose of this workshop was to take some initial steps in defining needed research in household decision making that structurally accounts for goal sharing, utility interdependence, taste heterogeneity, choice set formation, power structures, group size and composition, and so forth. We also considered conditions under which aggregation of tastes, utility and choices might occur and make sense from both behavioral and modeling perspectives.     

Computational suite of models with heterogeneous agents: Incomplete markets and aggregate uncertainty

This paper describes the first model considered in the computational suite project that compares different numerical algorithms. It is an incomplete markets economy with a continuum of agents and an inequality (borrowing) constraint.     

Consumer response to child tax credit

This article uses micro-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) to study consumers?? spending responses to the child tax credit. The article provides one test of the permanent-income hypothesis (PIH) that infers that temporary changes in income have little effect on consumer spending, at the initiation of the child tax credit in 1997, and a second PIH test when the credit was increased in 2003. The evidence supports the PIH in both 1997 and 2003, even using three different proxies for liquidity-constrained households. Separate from any PIH implications, our findings suggest the child tax credit did not provide a short-term consumption stimulus in either of the time periods studied. Our results therefore cast some doubt on whether this type of tax credit should be considered sound fiscal policy.     

Civilizing markets: Carbon trading between in vitro and in vivo experiments

The creation of carbon markets is one of the solutions currently envisaged to meet the widely recognized challenge of global warming. The contributions in this special section of Accounting, Organizations and Society show that many controversies nevertheless exist on the ways in which these markets are organized, the calculative tools that are devised to equip them, and the role that they are supposed to play, especially in relation to other types of intervention which favour political measures or technological research. In light of these controversies, the article considers carbon markets as on-going collective experiments. It is argued that carbon trading is an exceptional site for identifying the stakes involved in such experiments and for identifying better what the dynamics of civilizing markets could be.     

Equity recognition of mandatory accounting changes: the case of transitional goodwill impairment losses

This study investigates if and how the use of the retroactive method to account for a mandatory accounting change affects a firm's measurement and recognition choices. We examine if reporting incentives and constraints are associated with the magnitude of transitional goodwill impairment losses reported by Canadian firms implementing Section 3062 on purchased goodwill. Our results indicate firms have an incentive to both overstate and understate transitional goodwill impairment losses. We also show that financially literate and independent audit committees constrain managerial opportunism. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intergenerational Altruism and the Environment

We construct an overlapping generations model of pollution externality in which individuals are altruistically linked to their offspring as in Barro (1974). It is shown that steady-state consumption may be a decreasing function of the intergenerational degree of altruism. Despite individuals' altruism, the competitive equilibrium is not optimal. We thus study the social optimum and show that it can be decentralized.
JEL classification: D 62; D 64; D 91     

Corporate environmental disclosure, financial markets and the media: An international perspective

In this study, we analyze the information dynamics between corporate environmental disclosure, financial markets (as proxied by financial analysts' earnings forecasts) and public pressures (as proxied by a firm's media exposure). We adopt a comprehensive view of disclosure that encompasses environmental information that is both print-based as well as web-based. The sample comprises firms from both continental Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, and Netherlands) as well as North America (Canada and the United States). Relying on a system of equations that controls for endogeneity between environmental disclosure determination and financial analysts' work, we show that enhanced environmental disclosure translates into more precise earnings forecasts by analysts. Such effect is reduced for firms with extensive analyst following and in environmentally sensitive industries. However, these relationships are shown to be starker in Europe than in North America, i.e., environmental disclosure has a greater impact on analysts' forecasts but is also more greatly attenuated by analyst following and membership in an environmentally sensitive industry. Most observed relationships hold for either print- or web-based disclosure, except for North America in which web-based disclosure seems to have no impact on analysts' forecasting work.     

The optimal inheritance tax in the presence of investment in education

This paper provides an example aimed at calculating the optimal inheritance tax in a model in which inheritances are used to finance investment in education. Two results are obtained: (1) The optimal inheritance tax schedule includes a threshold, estimated between 2.5 and 5.5 times per-capita GDP. This result holds for a Rawlsian social planner that maximizes the welfare of the poorest individual, who does not leave bequests. (2) Contrary to the result of a 100 % tax on pure accidental bequests, the optimal simulated tax rates are between 28 %, for the case of educational bequests, and 57 %, for the case where educational and accidental bequests interact. This range is in line with existing schedules in developed economies.     

Disentangling CEO compensation: A simultaneous examination of time,industry, and firm‐level effects

Despite decades of research, how CEO compensation is determined remains an enigma. Drawing on agency, managerial hegemony, and institutional theoretical perspectives, we use hierarchical linear modelling—a multilevel analytic technique—to examine how firm‐, industry‐, and time‐level effects drive CEO compensation in US corporations. Results show that while cash salary is mostly driven by firm‐specific factors, equity‐based compensation responds to time‐level effects with firm‐ and industry‐level effects playing a marginal role. We argue that such evidence is consistent with the institutionalization of the CEO compensation determination process through the widespread adoption of benchmark peer‐group comparisons. Such practices underlie economy‐wide changes in CEO compensation that are increasingly disconnected from other fundamental firm‐ or industry‐specific factors. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trustworthiness as a Moral Determinant of Economic Activity: Lessons from the Classics

This paper reviews the way that social norms and ethical values in general, and trustworthiness in particular, is perceived to affect the behavior of economic agents in view of the work of Adam Smith, Nassau William Senior and John Stuart Mill. Classical Political economists held that economic actions are context-dependent and thus constantly under the influence of social norms and values. It is further suggested here that Classical Economists had established that trustworthiness acts as a general ethical precondition for the efficient behaviour of the markets and an important asset of the national social capital.