Auditor independence is a guiding principle of the relationship between auditors and clients, and a key component of outsiders' acceptance of firms' financial statements. As recent accounting scandals have illustrated, the audit process is meaningless without the auditor's impartial judgment....

This study examines investors' reaction to managers' use of contrastive words (words that introduce corrective and/or unexpected information) during the question and answer (Q&A) sessions of conference calls. We document evidence that managers' use of contrastive words is an indicator of the...

This study examines the relationship between the value of financial analysts' recommendations and the intensity of firms' research and development (R&D) expenditures. We conduct univariate, portfolio and regression analyses using a sample of 8,620 public firms for the period 1993-2004. The...

This study examines the extent to which analyst recommendations were useful in identifying earnings surprises during the pre- and post- Regulation FD periods. A comparative analysis of the association between recommendation revisions and subsequent earnings surprises suggests a significant...

Excess taxation of capital gains is a by-product of inflation in a tax system that uses nominal values as its basis. Studies by Feldstein, Green and Sheshinsky [JPE 1978] and Feldstein and Slemrod [NBER WP 234, 1978] analyze related macroeconomic distortions associated with corporate stock...

In setting the allowable rate of return of public utilities, U.S. regulatory agencies and the courts continue to rely on the standard discounted-cash-flow (DCF) method based on the Gordon-Miller-Modigliani model of share valuation under constant growth - a model which ignores personal taxes....

The interaction of inflation with a progressive tax system has been known to cause tax rates, and thus tax liabilities, to escalate with nominal income. Often blamed for having undesirable effects on investment and wealth, this feature of modern tax systems has not received formal treatment in...

The personal tax impact on share prices of a permanent distribution via stock repurchase was first modeled by Bierman and West (JF 1966, #4) who argued that the tax impact is minimized under permanent ownership by the same shareholders. Elton and Gruber (JF 1968, #1) faulted the original model...

The modest title chosen by the editor understates the contribution of this paper. To the best of our knowledge, we were the first to use company-based shareholder valuation approach to refute the prevailing view that retention of corporate earnings under the U.S. tax system automatically...