We incorporate fixed and variable costs into a cash flow based CAPM to investigate how each type of cost affects the cost of equity capital. A decrease in fixed costs always reduces cost of capital. With positive fixed costs, a decrease in the variable cost rate reduces cost of capital despite...

This paper develops a technique to infer the accuracy of analysts' forecasts of different components of earnings when databases contain forecasts of only bottom line (or limited component) earnings forecasts. We focus our analysis on three components - sales, operating profit percentage, and...

This paper investigates why LIFO firms have higher reported earnings-price (EP) ratios compared with non-LIFO firms, a result reported by Lee (1988). Observed cross-sectional differences in financial statement variables between LIFO and non-LIFO firms identified by prior research do not explain...

This article seeks to highlight significant U.S. federal income tax legislation in a manner that is useful to academics performing research in the field of finance. Taxes are a pervasive part of the current financial landscape, and as such it can be important for researchers to be aware of their...

I examine differences between effective tax rates (ETRs) and book-tax differences (BTDs) as alternative measures of corporate tax avoidance or tax aggressiveness. When BTDs are scaled by pretax income, the scaled BTD is statistically equivalent to the ETR. When BTDs are scaled by assets the...

Economic theory has long argued that when risk-averse investors are price-takers, a tax on risky returns (with full tax benefit for losses) will cause investments in risky assets to increase because the tax reduces after-tax risk. We extend this result to a setting with a fixed supply of risky...

We investigate whether low Cash ETRs are associated with two distinct effects — tax avoidance and low earnings quality — and if so, whether the two effects can be separated. Separating these effects is important: if upward earnings management is driving low Cash ETRs, inferences based on tax...

We investigate the role of book-tax conformity in firms' financial reporting activities using a unique set of publicly traded firms that were forced to switch for tax purposes from the cash method to the accrual method. Prior to the mandated change, little tension existed between tax planning...