Sharing Risk with the Government: How Taxes Affect Corporate Risk Taking

Using 113 staggered changes in corporate income tax rates across U.S. states, we provide evidence on how taxes affect corporate risk‐taking decisions. Higher taxes reduce expected profits more for risky projects than for safe ones, as the government shares in a firm's upside but not in its downside. Consistent with this prediction, we find that risk taking is sensitive to taxes, albeit asymmetrically: the average firm reduces risk in response to a tax increase (primarily by changing its operating cycle and reducing R&D risk) but does not respond to a tax cut. We trace the asymmetry back to constraints on risk taking imposed by creditors. Finally, tax loss‐offset rules moderate firms’ sensitivity to taxes by allowing firms to partly share downside risk with the government.     

Material Misstatement of What? A Comment on Smieliauskas et al., ‘A Proposal to Replace “True and Fair View” with “Acceptable Risk of Material Misstatement” ’

This comment explores theoretical and practical aspects of the Smieliauskas et al. (2008 ), ‘A Proposal to Replace “True and Fair View” With “Acceptable Risk of Material Misstatement”, and develops the ideas outlined there. It is argued that these proposals are helpful, but theoretically incomplete. Theoretical developments relating to accounting aspects are offered, and proposed for others to take further. The pragmatic implications suggest difficulties in the operationalization of the ideas of the original paper in a world of multiple and inconsistent user needs.     

Outflows–induced sudden stops

The term ‘sudden stop’ refers to a scenario in which an emerging market is suddenly cut off from international capital markets. Losing access to capital markets can be devastating, often resulting in a currency crisis and recession. However, some sudden stop episodes are driven not by global investors heading for the exits, but rather by locals increasing their international claims. The source of the problem determines the policy response. To better focus on sources rather than outcomes, sudden stops should be identified as a cessation of inflows (inflows‐induced) or a sudden surge in outflows (outflows‐induced).     

Consumption Volatility Risk

We show that time variation in macroeconomic uncertainty affects asset prices. Consumption volatility is a negatively priced source of risk for a wide variety of test portfolios. At the firm level, exposure to consumption volatility risk predicts future returns, generating a spread across quintile portfolios in excess of 7% annually. This premium is explained by cross‐sectional differences in the sensitivity of dividend volatility to consumption volatility. Stocks with volatile cash flows in uncertain aggregate times require higher expected returns.     

Short Selling and Efficient Sets

The effect of short selling on the composition and location of the efficient set has been analyzed in a variety of ways. However, the situation typically facing investors where the initial margin requirement is less than 100 percent and the riskfree interest rate that is paid on the short proceeds is less than the rate paid on initial margin has not previously been considered. The Elton-Gruber-Padberg algorithm (1976, 1978), subject to certain modifications, is shown here to be capable of identifying the efficient set under such conditions.     

DOES THE KYOTO PROTOCOL COST TOO MUCH AND CREATE UNBREAKABLE BARRIERS FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH?

We look to the literature on short-term cost models, long-term models based on endogenous growth, and long-term models that assume induced technical change, in order to demonstrate the current understanding of costs, which is the focus of the debate on abating climate change. Using these insights as well as other results—like the role of ancillary benefits and the lack of a relationship between decarbonization and economic growth—our contribution to this debate will be to help policy makers understand how economic analyses are conducted and how they should be used in the subsequent political discussions. (JEL Q52, Q54, Q58 )     

Momentum and Credit Rating

This paper establishes a robust link between momentum and credit rating. Momentum profitability is large and significant among low‐grade firms, but it is nonexistent among high‐grade firms. The momentum payoffs documented in the literature are generated by low‐grade firms that account for less than 4% of the overall market capitalization of rated firms. The momentum payoff differential across credit rating groups is unexplained by firm size, firm age, analyst forecast dispersion, leverage, return volatility, and cash flow volatility.     

ARE ATHLETES DOPED? SOME THEORETICAL ARGUMENTS AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Sports fans all over the world have recently witnessed an increasing number of spectacular doping cases, leading to considerable annoyance in the public. However, our knowledge regarding the prevalence of doping is still quite limited, leading some people to speculate that (nearly) all professional athletes are doped and possibly even have to be doped to be good enough to compete successfully in highly selective tournaments. On the other hand, particularly representatives of the sports associations pretend that since the number of positively tested athletes remains small, there are only a few "black sheep," while in general, the world of sport is clean and fair. In the recent past, a number of theoretical models have been developed that can be empirically tested, which, in the end, may lead to the formulation of policy recommendations (ranging from higher sanctions to legalizing doping). We review the more important models and present anecdotal as well as some quantitative empirical evidence on the prevalence as well as the determinants of doping. ( JEL K42, L83, M52)     

A Labor Capital Asset Pricing Model

We show that labor search frictions are an important determinant of the cross‐section of equity returns. Empirically, we find that firms with low loadings on labor market tightness outperform firms with high loadings by 6% annually. We propose a partial equilibrium labor market model in which heterogeneous firms make dynamic employment decisions under labor search frictions. In the model, loadings on labor market tightness proxy for priced time‐variation in the efficiency of the aggregate matching technology. Firms with low loadings are more exposed to adverse matching efficiency shocks and require higher expected stock returns.