The Regulation of Dietary Supplements Within the United States: Flawed Attempts at Mending a Defective Consumer Safety Mechanism

The use of dietary supplements in the United States has escalated in the past decade, driven by the public's desire to exert control over their health and by the mistaken belief that the safety of dietary supplements is assured by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In fact, the marketing of largely unregulated supplements presents significant risks to public health.     

THE SYSTEMATIC RISK OF DEBT: AUSTRALIAN EVIDENCE*

This paper examines systematic risk (betas) of Australian government debt securities for the period 1979–2004 and makes three contributions to academic research and practical debate. First, the empirical work provides direct evidence on the systematic risk of government debt, and provides a benchmark for estimating the systematic risk of corporate debt which is relevant for cost of capital estimation and for optimal portfolio selection by asset managers such as superannuation funds. Second, analysis of reasons for non‐zero (and time varying) betas for fixed income securities aids understanding of the primary sources of systematic risk. Third, the results cast light on the appropriate choice of maturity of risk free interest rate for use in the Capital Asset Pricing Model and have implications for the current applicability of historical estimates of the market risk premium. Debt betas are found to be, on average, significantly positive and (as expected) closely related, cross sectionally, to duration. They are, however, subject to significant time series variation, and over the past few years the pre‐existing positive correlation between bond and stock returns appears to have vanished.     

Tax Advice and Reporting under Uncertainty: Theory and Experimental Evidence*

Abstract. This study extends the Beck, Davis, and Jung (1992) experimental study by incorporating opportunities for taxpayer subjects to purchase advice before making their tax reporting decisions. Tax advice has two roles in the model and experiment. First, tax advice allows taxpayers to reduce their uncertainty about the amount of taxes owed. This permits us to study the demand for tax advice in conjunction with its effect on tax reporting decisions. Second, the decision to purchase tax advice from an expert provides a means of signaling that may alter tax agency audit policies. The resulting audit policies, in turn, can affect taxpayers' decisions to purchase tax advice. These interdependencies are incorporated in a game-theoretic model and several predictions are tested experimentally. Consistent with theory, subjects sorted themselves into three groups based upon their private information. Another prediction supported by the experiment is that the demand for tax advice increased with the magnitude of an uncertain tax deduction (amount-at-risk). We also found, as expected, that the effects of tax advice on pre-audit tax revenues depend upon the amount-at-risk. When the amount-at-risk was high, subjects in settings with tax advice reported lower average incomes and paid lower taxes than did those subjects in settings without the opportunity to purchase tax advice. The opposite was true for the low amount-at-risk condition, supporting our prediction that tax advice and amount-at-risk would have an interactive effect on tax reporting. Analysis was also performed on post-audit tax collections. Contrary to theory, post-audit tax payments were found to increase when subjects had an opportunity to purchase tax advice. This result apparently was caused by a tendency to over-purchase tax advice and, in some cases, to report a low income regardless of the advice received. Résumé. Les auteurs développent l'étude expérimentale de Beck, Davis et Jung (1992) en y incorporant la possibilité pour les sujets contribuables de solliciter des conseils avant de prendre leurs décisions relatives à l'information qu'ils fourniront aux fins fiscales. Les conseils fiscaux jouent deux rôles dans le modèle et l'expérience. Premièrement, ils permettent aux contribuables de réduire leur incertitude relative au montant des impôts auxquels ils sont assujettis. Les auteurs peuvent ainsi étudier la demande de conseils fiscaux en conjonction avec leurs conséquences sur les décisions relatives à l'information à fournir aux fins fiscales. Deuxièmement, la décision de solliciter les conseils fiscaux d'un expert est un signal pouvant influer sur les politiques de vérification des représentants du fisc. À leur tour, ces politiques peuvent influer sur les décisions des contribuables de solliciter des conseils fiscaux. Ces interdépendances ont été intégrées à un modèle de jeu théorique et les auteurs ont vérifié plusieurs prédictions par expérimentation. Conformément à la théorie, les sujets se sont répartis en trois groupes, en fonction de l'information privilégiée dont ils disposaient. L'expérimentation a confirmé une autre prédiction: la demande de conseils fiscaux augmente avec l'importance de la somme dont la déductibilité est incertaine (montant à risque). Les auteurs constatent également, comme ils s'y attendaient, que les effets des conseils fiscaux sur les recettes fiscales antérieures à la vérification dépendent du montant à risque. Lorsque le montant à risque est élevé, les sujets pouvant solliciter des conseils fiscaux font état de revenus moyens inférieurs et paient moins d'impôt que les sujets n'ayant pas la possibilité de solliciter des conseils fiscaux. L'inverse est vrai lorsque le montant à risque est faible, ce qui confirme la prédiction selon laquelle les conseils fiscaux et le montant à risque ont un effet interactif sur l'information fournie aux fins fiscales. Les auteurs analysent également les impôts perçus postérieurement à la vérification. Contrairement à la théorie, ils constatent que les paiements fiscaux postérieurs à la vérification augmentent lorsque les sujets ont eu la possibilité de solliciter des conseils fiscaux. Ce résultat semble être attribuable à une tendance à solliciter des conseils fiscaux avec excès et, dans certains cas, à faire état d'un faible revenu, malgré les conseils reçus.     

Recognition and Disclosure Reliability: Evidence from SFAS No. 106*

This paper examines a fundamental question of interest to researchers and regulators: Does the market treat disclosed financial statement information as if it is less reliable than information recognized in the body of the financial statements? Specifically, we compare the perceived reliability of liabilities for retiree benefits other than pensions (PRBs) disclosed prior to adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 106 (SFAS No. 106) with the perceived reliability of PRB liabilities subsequently recognized under SFAS No. 106. Overall, the evidence is consistent with the market treating disclosed PRB liabilities as less reliable than recognized PRB liabilities and pension liabilities. However, once PRB liabilities are recognized, they do not appear to be any less reliable than pension liabilities. These findings are inconsistent with the Choi, Collins, and Johnson 1997 conclusion that PRB liabilities are inherently less reliable than pension liabilities. The paper also investigates factors that may have contributed to the lower perceived disclosure reliability. Our results suggest that the market perceived PRB liability disclosures to be less reliable when firms provided range disclosures, had higher probabilities of reducing plan benefits, or had lower ratios of retiree to total PRB obligations. These findings suggest that reliability may have been enhanced if more supporting details had been provided in Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 74 disclosures.