The value of a company is a function of many variables. Costs are of special importance since managers can influence costs. Success at cost management has a phenomenal effect on value because of the relationships between costs, business risk, financial risk, and valuation. These relationships...

The prescription for 1992 for the European Community calls for the completion of the Internal Market and the absence of many of the fiscal and physical barriers to the movement of goods, capital, and labour within the community. However, realistically it is likely that residual fiscal and other...

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...