The managerial response to regulation of financial reporting for segments of a business enterprise

To properly assess the performance and monitor the management of industrially diversified firms, investors and other stakeholders may want companies to report separate financial data for each of their lines of business. In the mid-1970s, following a major increase in diversification of American firms, private and public regulators began requiring firms to disclose financial data for individual industry segments. Company managers, however, were given the authority to determine the degree to which data reported to outsiders was disaggregated. This article examines the managerial response to segmented financial disclosure regulations. Analysis of longitudinal data reveals that the extent of segmentation in reporting has been both low and declining, relative to the true extent of industrial diversification. In 1985, the fraction of companies with more than one reported segment was only 29.7 percent, whereas the fraction of companies operating in more than one line of business (assigned more than one SIC code by Compustat) was 83.5 percent. In 1977, about half of the included companies reported at least two industry segments, and a third reported at least three; by 1987, these fractions had declined to about one-quarter and one-seventh, respectively. A potential explanation of these findings is that managers perceive minimal disclosure of segmented information to be in their own self-interest.     

Thomas Jefferson on the repudiation of public debt

Thomas Jefferson's theory of public debt repudiation illustrates both the normative and positive aspects of public debt repudiation. Using Jefferson's model, this paper attempts to reveal several characteristics of public debt repudiation. First, that the positive characteristics of repudiation can not be analyzed apart from the normative and institutional issues. Second, how a debt repudiation rule might be incorporated into a country's constitution and, finally, how such a rule may lead to an improvement of the country's credit terms over those that would exist otherwise. In other words, a country may be better off announcing its standards for repudiation then if it denied any intention to repudiate under any conditions. A related issue, which is beyond the scope of this paper, is the sufficient conditions for repudiation. Jefferson's model develops only the necessary conditions. I would like to thank J. Richard Aronson, Wayne Brough, Dean Crawshare, James Dearden, Kenneth Greene, Vince Munley, the anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the 1990 Public Choice Society meetings and at Lehigh University for helpful comments and suggestions. Of course, the author is responsible for any errors. The author is grateful to The Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise which supplied research support.     

Uncertainty and sustainability in the management of rangelands

We analyze a dynamic and stochastic ecological-economic model of grazing management in semi-arid rangelands. The ecosystem is driven by stochastic precipitation. A risk averse farmer chooses a grazing management strategy under uncertainty such as to maximize expected utility from farming income. Grazing management strategies are rules about which share of the rangeland is given rest depending on the actual rainfall in that year. In a first step we determine a myopic farmer's optimal grazing management strategy and show that a risk averse farmer chooses a strategy such as to obtain insurance from the ecosystem: the optimal strategy reduces income variability, but yields less mean income than possible. In a second step we analyze the long-run ecological and economic impact of different strategies. We conclude that a myopic farmer, if he is sufficiently risk averse, will choose a sustainable grazing management strategy, even if he does not take into account long-term ecological and economic benefits of conservative strategies.     

Exploring the boundaries of the framing effect: The moderating roles of disparate expected values and perceived costs of judgmental errors

Framing effects on retail store choice decisions were investigated in four experiments. Subjects preferred the store that guaranteed (a sure option) good prices (experiment 1), product availability (experiment 2), or a rebate (experiment 3) when consequences were framed in terms of gains; subjects preferred the risky option when consequences were framed in terms of losses. Consistent with fuzzy-trace theory, framing effects were reduced when the expected values of options were disparate in a direction that disfavored sure gain or probabilistic loss options (experiment 2) and when the perceived costs of committing a judgmental error were high (experiment 3). Experiment 4 shows that the moderating effects of disparate expected values and costs of judgment errors generalize to within-subject designs.     

Trade-off Model of Debt Maturity Structure

In this paper, we suggest the trade-off model to explain the choice of debt maturity. This model is based on balancing between risk and reward of using shorter-term loans. Shorter-term loans have cost advantage over, but incur higher refinancing and interest rate risk than longer-term loans. Using the Compustat data, we show that the principal components of financial attributes are financial flexibility and financial strength. Therefore, only firms with greater financial flexibility and financial strength can use proportionately more short-term loans. We also document that financially strong firms take advantage of lower interest rates of short-term debt. They use proportionately more short-term loans when the term premium is high. The results of our study also provide evidence supporting the agency cost hypothesis, which is strongly supported by current literature.     

The Original Maturity of Corporate Bonds: The Influence of Credit Rating,Asset Maturity,Security, and Macroeconomic Conditions

We examine the determinants of the new issue maturity of corporate bonds. As credit rating decreases, new bond issues have longer maturities, but substantial variation in maturity within each rating class remains. We seek to explain the variation of new issue maturity within credit classes. We find that asset maturity, security covenants, and macroeconomic conditions influence the new issue maturity of bonds within rating categories.