Federal quality control (QC) programs for the measurement of payment allocation errors in federally funded Family Assistance Programs have been at the center of a hot controversy. In 1986, Congress directed the Department of Health and Human Services to contract with the National Academy of...

I document evidence that short-horizon earnings mean reversion is the initial portion of a long-horizon cycle in firm earnings, and motivate a theory for how industry level capital expenditure forms a delayed negative feedback loop around firm earnings, driving the cycle. Regression results...