This paper analyzes the welfare costs of business cycles when workers face uninsurable job displacement risk that has a cyclical component. Using a simple general equilibrium model with incomplete markets, this paper shows the following result: for sufficiently high degree of risk aversion (at least one), cyclical variations in the long-term earnings losses of displaced workers can generate arb...

Earnings, sometimes called the “bottom line” or “net income,” are the single most important item in financial statements. They indicate the extent to which a company has engaged in value-added activities. They are a signal that helps direct resource allocation in capital markets. In fact, the theoretical value of a company’s stock is the present value of its future earnings. Increased earnings ...

This paper examines the relation between smooth past earnings performance and the credibility of voluntary management earnings forecasts. Specifically, using strings of increasing earnings per share as our measure of past performance, we demonstrate that both analyst forecast revisions and stock price reactions around management earnings forecasts are more pronounced when the firm has posted a ...

This study examines whether earnings changes convey information in bond markets and finds a significant positive (negative) reaction to unexpected earnings increases (decreases). The results are consistetit whether earnings announcements precede or follow dividend announcements. Thus, earnings surprises convey information to bond markets and changes in firm value are split among bondholders and...

Increases in the association between spouses' earnings have the potential to increase inequality as marriages increasingly consist of two high-earning or two low-earning partners. This article uses log-linear models and data from the March Current Population Survey to describe trends in the association between spouses' earnings and estimate their contribution to growing earnings inequality amon...

We investigate whether the positive associations between discretionary accrual proxies and beating earnings benchmarks hold for comparisons of groups segregated at other points in the distributions of earnings, earnings changes, and analystsbased unexpected earnings. We refer to these points as ‘‘pseudo’’ targets. Results suggest that the positive association between discretionary accruals and ...

In this paper, we present the results from a field experiment in the Netherlands in which single mothers on welfare were stimulated to find a job. Two policy instruments were introduced: an earnings disregard and job creation. The experiment was performed at the level of municipalities. In our analysis we make a distinction between native and immigrant welfare recipients. For immigrant single m...

We examine whether the previously documented pricing premium for firms’ equity when they meet or beat earnings expectations (MBE) is attributable to a reduction in the cost of equity capital via a reduction in information asymmetry. We measure the latter using the probability of informed trading (PIN) from Easley et al. (1997). We find that PIN decreases (increases) when firms meet or beat (mis...