The Composition of Strike Activity in the Construction Industry

This study shows that strikes in construction have, by most measures, increased during the years since 1949, a period during which strike activity tended to decline in American industry as a whole. The authors demonstrate that this increase has resulted not from an increase in the number of wage disputes but from a growing number of jurisdictional strikes and the increasing severity of economic and union-organizing strikes. They also show that the number of strikes in construction does not vary significantly with the unemployment rate in that industry nor with the presence of wage controls, but both of those factors have a significant impact on the composition of strike activity in construction

Audit Committee Accounting Expertise, Analyst Following, and Market Liquidity

We study the relation between audit committee accounting expertise, analyst following, and market liquidity. Our main results indicate that analyst following increases subsequent to the appointment of an accounting expert to the audit committee. We also provide evidence that accrual quality, as opposed to audit quality or management earnings forecasts, is the channel through which accounting expertise increases analyst following and improves analyst forecast properties. We also show that audit committee accounting expertise is related to higher trading volume and lower liquidity risk, supporting incentives for greater analyst following. Our study extends prior literature by providing evidence that audit committee accounting expertise enhances firms’ information environment beyond the effects it has on financial reporting quality or analysts’ forecast properties. Our study also complements the literature on determinants of analyst following and market liquidity, both of which are related to cost of capital. Results from our study should be useful to firms seeking to enhance analyst following and market liquidity

Bone marrow transplantation alters the tremor phenotype in the murine model of globoid-cell leukodystrophy

Tremor is a prominent phenotype of the twitcher mouse, an authentic genetic model of Globoid-Cell Leukodystrophy (GLD, Krabbe’s disease). In the current study, the tremor was quantified using a force-plate actometer designed to accommodate low-weight mice. The actometer records the force oscillations caused by a mouse’s movements, and the rhythmic structure of the force variations can be revealed. Results showed that twitcher mice had significantly increased power across a broad band of higher frequencies compared to wildtype mice. Bone marrow transplantation (BMT), the only available therapy for GLD, worsened the tremor in the twitcher mice and induced a measureable alteration of movement phenotype in the wildtype mice. These data highlight the damaging effects of conditioning radiation and BMT in the neonatal period. The behavioral methodology used herein provides a quantitative approach for assessing the efficacy of potential therapeutic interventions for Krabbe’s disease

Managerial Ability and the Quality of Firms’ Information Environment

In this study, we examine the relation between managerial ability and the quality of a firm’s information environment. An emerging stream of research has identified managerial ability as an important determinant of accruals quality and management forecast quality. However, our understanding of the impact of managerial ability on a firm’s broader information environment is incomplete because it captures more than these specific financial reporting disclosures. Using a composite index based on various proxies for a firm’s information environment, we find a positive relation between managerial ability and a firm’s information environment. Consistent with our argument that managers’ equity incentives improve disclosure quality, we find that the quality of a firm’s information environment improves when managers have higher levels of equity incentives. We contribute to the literature by providing more complete and conclusive evidence about the impact of managerial ability on a firm’s broader information environment

Managerial Ability and Income Smoothing

n this study, we investigate whether managerial ability is related to income smoothing and, if so, whether smoothing associated with managerial ability improves the informativeness of earnings and stock prices about future performance. Using a large sample of firms, we find that managerial ability is positively related to smoothing. More importantly, we show that high-ability managers incorporate more forward-looking information about cash flows into current earnings through smoothing, thereby enhancing earnings informativeness. We also find that smoothing associated with high-ability managers improves stock price informativeness about future cash flows. Our study should be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and others concerned with understanding the determinants and usefulness of smoothin

Bone Marrow Transplantation Alters the Tremor Phenotype in the Murine Model of Globoid-Cell Leukodystrophy

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from "http://www.mdpi.com".Tremor is a prominent phenotype of the twitcher mouse, an authentic genetic model of Globoid-Cell Leukodystrophy (GLD, Krabbe’s disease). In the current study, the tremor was quantified using a force-plate actometer designed to accommodate low-weight mice. The actometer records the force oscillations caused by a mouse’s movements, and the rhythmic structure of the force variations can be revealed. Results showed that twitcher mice had significantly increased power across a broad band of higher frequencies compared to wildtype mice. Bone marrow transplantation (BMT), the only available therapy for GLD, worsened the tremor in the twitcher mice and induced a measureable alteration of movement phenotype in the wildtype mice. These data highlight the damaging effects of conditioning radiation and BMT in the neonatal period. The behavioral methodology used herein provides a quantitative approach for assessing the efficacy of potential therapeutic interventions for Krabbe’s disease

Stock Market Rewards for Earnings that Beat Analyst Earnings Forecasts when the Economy is Unforecastable

This study examines whether and why the stock market assigns an incremental premium to the act of beating analyst earnings forecasts when the economy is unforecastable. Our study uses a novel measure of macroeconomic (macro) uncertainty from Jurado et al. (2015) that captures periods during which the real economy is not forecastable and a regression model that controls for the forecast error throughout the quarter. Results show that during high macro uncertainty periods, the market assigns a greater premium to earnings that beat analyst earnings forecasts compared to the premium assigned to these earnings during low macro uncertainty periods. We also report a lower likelihood of managing earnings to beat analyst earnings forecasts during high macro uncertainty periods, suggesting higher accounting information quality. We further show that the incremental premium in high macro uncertainty periods is mainly concentrated within the group of firms that have both low liquidity risk and high accounting information quality. Evidence from our study should be relevant to those interested in understanding the usefulness of earnings during periods of extreme macro uncertainty and forces that determine accounting information quality

Aggregate Financial Misreporting and the Predictability of U.S. Recessions

We rely on the theoretical prediction that financial misreporting peaks before economic busts to examine whether aggregate ex ante measures of the likelihood of financial misreporting improve the predictability of U.S. recessions. We consider six measures of misreporting and show that the Beneish M-Score significantly improves out-of-sample recession prediction at longer forecasting horizons. Specifically, relative to leading models based on yield spreads and market returns, M-Score increases the average probability of a recession across forecast horizons of six-, seven-, and eight-quarters-ahead by 56 percent, 79 percent, and 92 percent, respectively. These findings are robust to alternative definitions of interest rate spreads, and to controlling for the federal funds rate, investor sentiment, and aggregate earnings growth. We show that the performance of M-Score likely arises because firms with high M-Scores tend to experience negative future performance. Overall, this study provides novel evidence that accounting information can be useful to forecasters and regulators interested in assessing the likelihood of U.S. recessions a few quarters ahead

Atomic structure of dislocation kinks in silicon

We investigate the physics of the core reconstruction and associated structural excitations (reconstruction defects and kinks) of dislocations in silicon, using a linear-scaling density-matrix technique. The two predominant dislocations (the 90-degree and 30-degree partials) are examined, focusing for the 90-degree case on the single-period core reconstruction. In both cases, we observe strongly reconstructed bonds at the dislocation cores, as suggested in previous studies. As a consequence, relatively low formation energies and high migration barriers are generally associated with reconstructed (dangling-bond-free) kinks. Complexes formed of a kink plus a reconstruction defect are found to be strongly bound in the 30-degree partial, while the opposite is true in the case of 90-degree partial, where such complexes are found to be only marginally stable at zero temperature with very low dissociation barriers. For the 30-degree partial, our calculated formation energies and migration barriers of kinks are seen to compare favorably with experiment. Our results for the kink energies on the 90-degree partial are consistent with a recently proposed alternative double-period structure for the core of this dislocation.Comment: 12 pages, two-column style with 8 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX and epsf macros. Also available at http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~dhv/preprints/index.html#rn_di

Structure, barriers and relaxation mechanisms of kinks in the 90-degree partial dislocation in silicon

Kink defects in the 90-degree partial dislocation in silicon are studied using a linear-scaling density-matrix technique. The asymmetric core reconstruction plays a crucial role, generating at least four distinct kink species as well as soliton defects. The energies and migration barriers of these entities are calculated and compared with experiment. As a result of certain low-energy kinks, a peculiar alternation of the core reconstruction is predicted. We find the solitons to be remarkably mobile even at very low temperature, and propose that they mediate the kink relaxation dynamics.Comment: 4 pages in a two column gzipped postscript file (128 K), containing 3 figures and one table. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let