Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown [1968] by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown [1968] researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown [1968] to create a body of research on the usefulness, timeliness, and other properties of accounting numbers. We discuss how those paths often link back to the groundwork laid and questions originally posed in Ball and Brown [1968].     

Unbiased estimation of expected return using CAPM

Estimation of expected return is required for many financial decisions. For example, an estimate for cost of capital is required for capital budgeting and cost of equity estimates are needed for performance evaluation based on measures such as EVA. Estimates for expected return are often based on the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), which states that expected excess return (expected return minus the risk-free rate) is equal to the asset's sensitivity to the world market portfolio (β) times the risk premium on the “world market portfolio” (the market risk premium). Since the world market portfolio, by definition, contains all assets in the world, it is not observable. As a result, an estimate for expected return is commonly obtained by taking an estimate for β based on some index (as a proxy for the world market portfolio) and an estimate for the market risk premium based on a potentially different index and multiplying them together. In this paper, it is shown that this results in a biased estimate for expected return. This is undesirable since biased estimates lead to misallocation of funds and biased performance measures. It is also shown in this paper that the straightforward procedure suggested by Fama and MacBeth [J. Financ. Econ. 1 (1974) 43] results in an unbiased estimate for expected return. Further from the analysis done, it follows that, for an unbiased estimate, it does not matter what proxy is used, as long as it is used correctly an unbiased estimate for expected return results.     

Contrarian Investment in the Dutch Stock Market

The efficient markets hypothesis states that at any times security prices fully reflect all available information. Contrarian investment strategies do not recognize the efficiency of capital markets. They call for buying undervalued stocks, i.e. stocks with a low price relative to their fundamentals. The idea behind such a strategy is to take advantage of the extrapolation behaviour of naive investors. Using a fresh and extensive data set from the Dutch stock market, we found that these strategies yield an outperformance without a higher risk. Our results make it hard to maintain the efficient market hypothesis.     

浅谈污泥减量技术

本文综述了目前国内外对污泥减量化研究的主要理论和方法,介绍了隐形生长、生物捕食、微生物强化、代谢解偶联和投加酶等污泥减量技术,比较了各种技术的优缺点,可供相关工程技术人员参考.     

Relative Guarantees

Many real-world financial contracts have some sort of minimum rate of return guarantee included. One class of these guarantees is so-called relative guarantees, i.e., guarantees where the minimum guaranteed rate of return is given as a function of the stochastic return on a reference portfolio. These guarantees are the topic of this paper. We analyse a wide range of different functional specifications for the minimum guaranteed rate of return, hereunder both so-called maturity and multi-period guarantees. Several closed form solutions are presented.     

Reforming the Direct–Indirect Tax Mix

This paper provides a new framework for evaluating the welfare effects of commodity tax reforms. It is shown that tax reforms are welfare improving if and only if they satisfy the following intuitive property: on average, consumer prices fall for commodities with high marginal excess burdens. The rule is then applied to analyze a shift from differentiated commodity taxation to direct flat-rate taxation of labour income. The welfare impact of such reforms can be decomposed into two effects: (i) the increase in welfare associated with substitution among taxed commodities, and (ii) the loss in welfare associated with substitution between commodities and leisure. On balance, a shift towards direct taxation is desirable when inter-commodity substitution effects are large relative to commodity–leisure substitution effects. The analysis allows us to reconcile the apparently conflicting results of the tax reform and optimal taxation literatures.     

Changes in the Finnish Wage Structure: Will Demand and Supply Do?

This study addresses changes in the wage structure in Finland between 1977 and 1995, and provides a simple explanation based on the demand for and supply of skills. The single index model of Card and Lemieux (1996) is augmented by incorporating changes in the supply of skills. The augmented model adequately accounts for the changes in relative wages between groups of different education and experience, but does not capture the changes in the within-group distribution.
JEL classification : J 31     

报废汽车回收体系结构模型研究

报废汽车的回收重用一方面是＂生产者责任延伸制＂在汽车行业贯彻实施的结果,另一方面来源于再制造环节中蕴藏的丰厚利润的诱导.目前我国回收利用报废汽车的方式比较落后,主要是对原材料进行重用.本文构建了一个由汽车制造商牵头纽建,以功能多样化的回收中心作为中心处理单元的报废汽车回收体系结构模型,以期实现更高层次的回收重用.     

退货管理系统设计

对退货管理的研究发展历程、重要性及其在特定行业中的应用作了介绍,并给出了退货管理政策设计和网络设计的主要内容。最后分析了国内行业中的退货现状并给出建议。     

市场不完备与股票交易量

交易量与收益率都具有信息含量，它们之间既有联系又有区别。我国的证券市场是一个新兴的市场。与国际证券市场的联系不太紧密，投资者也不够成熟，市场不完备对交易量有较大的影响。文章从交易量与收益率的交互表现入手，分析了交易量的流动性假说、交易量与信息扩散速度的关系、信息不对称对交易量的影响。以度投资者的异质性、过度自信和投机行为等对交易量的影响；并着重讨论了中国证券市场实际存在的阶段性闭市、交易成本和卖空限制三种市场不完备对交易量的影响。