This dissertation contains three essays. The first essay examines the response of equity values to the announcement of a decrease in the capital gains tax rate. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 reduced the long-term capital gains tax rate. News of this rate reduction reached investors in late...

This dissertation contains two essays. The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 was intended to stimulate the economy by expediting the repatriation of foreign earnings and requiring that those repatriations be invested in domestic operations. The first essay investigates (1) who repatriated...

This dissertation investigates whether short sellers establish short positions prior to accounting restatement announcements and whether the levels of short interest are related to the severity of restatements. Using 565 firms with restatement disclosure during the period of 1995 to 2002 and...

This dissertation examines firms’ reactions to two changes in tax law intended toincrease dividend payout and capital investment, the Job Creation and WorkerAssistance Act (JCWAA) of 2002 and the Jobs Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act(JGTRRA) of 2003. Chapter IV assesses whether firms...

This study examines the determinants of tax aggressiveness. I utilize the unrecognized tax benefits (UTB) disclosed by the adoption of Financial Interpretation No. 48, “Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes” (FIN 48) to proxy for firms’ tax aggressiveness. I hand collect UTB...

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (the Act) created a tax holiday encouraging firms to repatriate foreign earnings and invest that capital in the United States. However, the Act did not require a direct tracing of the spending of repatriated funds; accordingly, repatriating firms could...

A study of one brokerage house's recommendations to its individual customers during the 1960s suggests that they were genuinely valuable, even after allowing for transactions costs and risk. On the other hand, the recommendations were useful in selection, rather than in market timing: The ratio...