nep-acc New Economics Papers
on Accounting and Auditing
Issue of 2008‒02‒02
four papers chosen by
Alexander Harin
Modern University for the Humanities

  1. Residual income and value creation: An investigation into the lost-capital paradigm By Magni, Carlo Alberto
  2. A more realistic valuation: APV and WACC with constant book leverage ratio By Fernandez, Pablo
  3. Creating Powerful Indicators for Innovation Studies with Approximate Matching Algorithms. A test based on PATSTAT and Amadeus databases. By Grid Thoma; Salvatore Torrisi
  4. To Roth or Not? -- That is the Question By Laurence J. Kotlikoff; Ben Marx; David Rapson

  1. By: Magni, Carlo Alberto
    Abstract: This paper presents a new way of measuring residual income, originally introduced by Magni (2000a, 2000b, 2003). Contrary to the standard residual income, the capital charge is equal to the capital lost by investors. The lost capital may be viewed as (a) the foregone capital, (b) the capital implicitly infused into the business, (c) the outstanding capital of a shadow project, (d) the claimholders' credit. Relations of the lost capital with book values and market values are studied, as well as relations of the lost-capital residual income with the classical standard paradigm; many appealing properties are derived, among which a property of earnings aggregation. Different concepts and results, provided by different authors in such different fields as economic theory, management accounting and corporate finance, are considered: O'Hanlon and Peasnell's (2002) unrecovered capital and Excess Value Created; Ohlson's (2005) Abnormal Earnings Growth; O'Byrne's (1997) EVA improvement; Miller and Modigliani's (1961) investment opportunities approach to valuation; Keynes's (1936) user cost; Drukarczyk and Schueler's (2000) Net Economic Income, Fernandez's (2002) Created Shareholder Value, Anthony's (1975) profit. They are all conveniently reinterpreted within the theoretical domain of the lost-capital paradigm and conjoined in a unified view. The results found make this new theoretical approach a good candidate for firm valuation, incentive compensation, capital budgeting decision-making
    Keywords: Corporate finance, management accounting, valuation, residual income, value creation, incentive compensation, outstanding capital, lost capital, net present value, book value, market value
    JEL: G11 G31 D40 M52 G30 M40 D46 M41 G12 G0 M21
    Date: 2007–11–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6309&r=acc
  2. By: Fernandez, Pablo (IESE Business School)
    Abstract: We value a company that targets its capital structure in book-value terms. This capital structure definition provides us with a valuation that lies between those of Modigliani-Miller (fixed debt) and Miles-Ezzell (fixed market-value leverage ratio). We show that if a company targets its leverage in market-value terms, it has less value than if it targets the leverage in book-value terms. We also present empirical evidence that permits us to conclude that debt is more related to the book-value of the assets than to their market-value.
    Keywords: value of tax shields; required return to equity; company valuation; cost of equity;
    JEL: G12 G31 G32
    Date: 2007–11–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0715&r=acc
  3. By: Grid Thoma (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Camerino and CESPRI - Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.); Salvatore Torrisi (Department of Management, Univesity of Bologna and CESPRI - Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.)
    Abstract: The lack of firm-level data on innovative activities has always constrained the development of empirical studies on innovation. More recently, the availability of large datasets on indicators, such as R&D expenditures and patents, has relaxed these constrains and spurred the growth of a new wave of research. However, measuring innovation still remains a difficult task for reasons linked to the quality of available indicators and the difficulty of integrating innovation indicators to other firm-level data. As regards quality, data on R&D expenditures represent a measure of input but do not tell much about the ‘success’ of innovative activities. Moreover, especially in the case of European firms, data on R&D expenditures are often missing because reporting these expenditures is not required by accounting and fiscal regulations in some countries. An increasing number of studies have used patents counts as a measure of inventive output. However, crude patent counts are a biased indicator of inventive output because they do not account for differences in the value of patented inventions. This is the reason why innovation scholars have introduced various patent-related indicators as a measure of the ‘quality’ of the inventive output. Integrating these measures of inventive activity with other firm-level information, such as accounting and financial data, is another challenging task. A major problem in this field is represented by the difficulty of harmonizing information from different data sources. This is a relevant issue since inaccuracy in data merging and integration leads to measurement errors and biased results. An important source of measurement error arises from inaccuracies in matching data on innovators across different datasets. This study reports on a test of company names standardization and matching. Our test is based on two data sources: the PATSTAT patent database and the Amadeus accounting and financial dataset. Earlier studies have mostly relied on manual, ad-hoc methods. More recently scholars have started experimenting with automatic matching techniques. This paper contributes to this body of research by comparing two different approaches – the character-tocharacter match of standardized company names (perfect matching) and the approximate matching based on string similarity functions. Our results show that approximate matching yields substantial gains over perfect matching, in terms of frequency of positive matches, with a limited loss of precision – i.e., low rates of false matches and false negatives.
    Keywords: innovation statistics, patents, matching company names, software.
    JEL: C81 C88 O31 O34
    Date: 2007–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp211&r=acc
  4. By: Laurence J. Kotlikoff; Ben Marx; David Rapson
    Abstract: Do regular 401(k) and IRA accounts offer greater tax benefits than Roth 401(k)s and Roth IRAs? This is a tough question. Regular 401(k)s and IRAs save taxes in the short term; Roth accounts save taxes in the long term. Regular 401(k)s and IRAs are vulnerable to future income tax hikes, but may benefit from a future switch to consumption taxation if the switch exempts withdrawals from income taxation. Roth accounts are exempt from future income tax hikes, but are exposed to future consumption taxation. For any given assumption about future tax policy, assessing the relative merits of the two types of saving vehicles requires very accurate calculations of taxes in each future year -- calculations that incorporate not just standard federal income tax provisions, but also the Savers Credit, the taxation of Social Security benefits, the Alternative Minimum Tax, and state income taxation. This paper uses ESPlanner (Economic Security Planner) -- a financial planning software program co-developed by Kotlikoff -- to study the relative merits of regular and Roth retirement accounts. In providing its consumption smoothing recommendations, ESPlanner makes the highly detailed tax and Social Security benefit calculations needed to compare retirement account options. In particular, ESPlanner can determine how different retirement account options affect different households' living standards under different assumptions about future tax policy. Our main findings are these: Absent future tax changes, middle-income, single-parent households benefit slightly more from Roth accounts; other single and married households generally fare better with a regular 401(k). Future tax changes, however, can dramatically change this horse race. In the case of low- and middle-income households, Regular 401(k) accounts under-perform Roth accounts in terms of long-run living standards assuming income taxes will rise by 30 percent in retirement. But the Roth falls far short of the regular 401(k) if taxes in retirement are assessed on consumption rather than on income and the transition to consumption taxation exempts 401(k) withdrawals from income taxation.
    JEL: G0 H0
    Date: 2008–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13763&r=acc

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