Sealed bid second price auctions with discrete bids

A single item is sold to two bidders by way of a sealed bid second price auction in which bids are restricted to a set of discrete values. Restricting attention to symmetric pure strategy behavior on the part of bidders, a unique equilibrium exists. When following these equilibrium strategies bidders may bid strictly above or below their valuation, implying that the item may be awarded to a bidder other than the high valuation bidder. In an auction with two acceptable bids, the expected revenue of the seller may be maximized by a high bid level not equal to the highest possible bidder valuation and may exceed the expected revenue from an analogous second price auction with continuous bidding (and no reserve price). With three acceptable bids, a revenue maximizing seller may choose unevenly spaced bids. With an arbitrary number of evenly spaced bids, as the number of acceptable bids is increased, the expected revenue of the seller and the probability of ex post inefficiency both may either increase or decrease

One way forward: non-traditional accounting disclosures in the 21st century

Recent empirical studies (Deegan and Rankin, 1999; Deegan et al., 2000) have indicated that although many corporations have begun to respond to perceived demand for environmental disclosures in published accounts, their perspective of organisational legitimacy is a narrow view, in which information is targeted towards specific stakeholders and not to the general public. This paper considers a range of models (variously called guidelines, standards and charters) which have been put forward by different organisations to aid the development of social and environmental disclosures. In all cases verification and attestation are part of the proposed regimen. The question which the papers attempts to answer is whether any one of the models would be capable of rapid adoption as part of an expanded GAAP, should the professional accounting bodies think that this is desirable. The outcome of our deliberations is cautious support for the use of EMAS and ISO 14000 as the basis for a modified GAAP plus the further development of the GRI 2000 guidelines into a set of standards covering both social and environmental reporting

Potentially dysfunctional impacts of harmonising accounting standards: the case of intangible assets

Intangible Assets as a category within accounting and reporting disclosures have become far more noticeable in recent years, including large amounts associated with brands, mastheads, franchises, and patents. Many of these items are not purchased but internally generated within the organisation, and may account for much of the difference in magnitude between book value and market capitalisation. The International Accounting Standards Committee has recently issued IAS 38 to regulate the reporting of intangible assets, and includes therein the prohibition of those intangible assets, which have been internally generated. This prohibition would cut across recently developed practices in Australia and New Zealand. The problem is compounded by an increasingly close relationship between IASs and the national standards of both Australia and New Zealand, making it very likely that the problem areas within IAS 38 will be transferred to the national standards. This paper examines the areas within IAS 38, which are likely to lead to undesirable consequences, both for internally generated intangible assets but also in terms of the reinforcement of somewhat conservative aspects of financial accounting including historical cost and the inhibiting effects on new developments generally. The possible compounding effects of an expectations gap between the traditional and expected role of financial statements is briefly examined as a possible explanation of the divergence of opinion between different groups involved in the development of accounting standards and reports

Externalities revisited: the use of an environmental equity account

This exploratory paper attempts to restart a debate about the incorporation of environmental externalities into the cost structure of the organisation. A number approaches are considered; regulation together with all that would follow such as audit and policing; pollution permits, which probably can only be used with a sinking lid application; and other charging mechanisms such as making the private sector pay for public sector capital funding. The fourth alternative, the use of an environmental equity account, has not been widely considered in the literature. The paper proposes the use of an environmental equity account (after Boone and Rubenstein, 1997) with the express intent of generating a charge for environmental impact based on the cost of control. That is, the cost of implementing state of the art technology compared to that currently in use within the organisation, is used as a balance which may be either paid as a capital sum or carried as a balance sheet entry upon which dividend payments would have to be made. It is envisaged that both capital sums and dividend payments would go to an agency responsible for environmental remediation activity

X-ray Isophotes in a Rapidly Rotating Elliptical Galaxy: Evidence of Inflowing Gas

We describe two-dimensional gasdynamical computations of the X-ray emitting gas in the rotating elliptical galaxy NGC 4649 that indicate an inflow of about one solar mass per year at every radius. Such a large instantaneous inflow cannot have persisted over a Hubble time. The central constant-entropy temperature peak recently observed in the innermost 150 parsecs is explained by compressive heating as gas flows toward the central massive black hole. Since the cooling time of this gas is only a few million years, NGC 4649 provides the most acutely concentrated known example of the cooling flow problem in which the time-integrated apparent mass that has flowed into the galactic core exceeds the total mass observed there. This paradox can be resolved by intermittent outflows of energy or mass driven by accretion energy released near the black hole. Inflowing gas is also required at intermediate kpc radii to explain the ellipticity of X-ray isophotes due to spin-up by mass ejected by stars that rotate with the galaxy and to explain local density and temperature profiles. We provide evidence that many luminous elliptical galaxies undergo similar inflow spin-up. A small turbulent viscosity is required in NGC 4649 to avoid forming large X-ray luminous disks that are not observed, but the turbulent pressure is small and does not interfere with mass determinations that assume hydrostatic equilibrium.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication by Ap

Cyclical Dynamics in Three Industries

In this paper we offer a procedure to identify the industry cycles, and apply the procedure to the industrial data of three industries, namely semiconductors, PCs and FPDs. The identified cycles enable us to conduct two comparison analyses: (1) comparing the cycles with those suggested by industry experts in the corresponding industries; (2) comparing the industry cycles across the three industries. Moreover, we examine the factors possibly contributing to the cyclical dynamics of the industries built on three lines of explanations in the literature. Our vector auto regression (VAR) models establish that the dynamics of aggregate economy and capacity are among the most significant drivers in our semiconductor industry cycle.Industry cycle, business cycle, technology cycle, business dynamics, VAR model

Derived Demand for Cattle Feeding Inputs

Derived demand relationships among four weight categories of feeder cattle entering Texas feedlots and their feed consumed are examined using a generalized McFadden dual cost function. Results demonstrate systematic differences in demand relationships among different weight categories. Positive cross-price elasticities among the three heaviest weight categories are consistent with input substitution among weight categories and consistent with objective functions associated with optimal placement weight. Anomalies in the form of negative cross-price elasticities between weight categories provide evidence for an alternative objective function associated with longer term feeding of light-weight feeder cattle. Results also demonstrate seasonality differences across weight categories.cattle feeding, derived demand, elasticity, feeder cattle, generalized McFadden cost function, Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis, Livestock Production/Industries,

Hydrostatic Gas Constraints On Supermassive Black Hole Masses: Implications For Hydrostatic Equilibrium And Dynamical Modeling In A Sample Of Early-Type Galaxies

We present new mass measurements for the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of three early-type galaxies. The gas pressure in the surrounding, hot interstellar medium (ISM) is measured through spatially resolved spectroscopy with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, allowing the SMBH mass (M(BH)) to be inferred directly under the hydrostatic approximation. This technique does not require calibration against other SMBH measurement methods and its accuracy depends only on the ISM being close to hydrostatic, which is supported by the smooth X-ray isophotes of the galaxies. Combined with results from our recent study of the elliptical galaxy NGC4649, this brings the number of galaxies with SMBHs measured in this way to four. Of these, three already have mass determinations from the kinematics of either the stars or a central gas disk, and hence join only a handful of galaxies with MBH measured by more than one technique. We find good agreement between the different methods, providing support for the assumptions implicit in both the hydrostatic and the dynamical models. The stellar mass-to-light ratios for each galaxy inferred by our technique are in agreement with the predictions of stellar population synthesis models assuming a Kroupa initial mass function (IMF). This concurrence implies that no more than similar to 10%-20% of the ISM pressure is nonthermal, unless there is a conspiracy between the shape of the IMF and nonthermal pressure. Finally, we compute Bondi accretion rates (M(bondi)), finding that the two galaxies with the highest M(bondi) exhibit little evidence of X-ray cavities, suggesting that the correlation with the active galactic nuclei jet power takes time to be established.NASA NAS5-26555, NNG04GE76G, G07-8083XAstronom