Amir Ziv

Information Sharing in Oligopoly: The Truth-Telling Problem

While under some circumstances information sharing in oligopoly may be beneficial, the literature ignores the possibility of strategic information sharing by assuming verifiability of data. I endogenize the incentives for truthful information sharing and prove that if firms have the ability to send misleading information, they will always do. To overcome this problem I introduce a (costly) mechanism through which the firm will, in its own best interest, reveal the true value of its private information, even though outside verification is impossible. I show that in some cases benefits from information sharing exceed the signalling costs, while in other cases the reverse is true. The fact that I model a two-sided signalling enables me to mitigate the signalling-cost problem. Rather than burning money, oligopolistic rivals may exchange transfer payments, thereby significantly reducing signalling costs.

Comparing Alternative Hedge Accounting Standards: Shareholders? Perspective

We study the economic consequences of alternative hedge accounting rules in terms of managerial hedging decisions and wealth effects for shareholders. The rules we consider include the “fair-value” and “cash-flow” hedge accounting methods prescribed by the recent SFAS No. 133. We illustrate that the accounting method used influences the managers hedge decision. We show that under no-hedge accounting, the hedge choice is different from the optimal economic hedge the firm would make under symmetric and public information. However, under a certain definition of fair-value hedge accounting, the hedging decision preserves the optimal economic hedge. We then demonstrate that long-term and future shareholders prefer a certain definition of fair-value hedge accounting to no-hedge accounting, while short-term shareholders prefer either approach depending on risk preferences and the level of uncertainty. We speculate about circumstances in which a manager would choose not to adopt fair-value hedge accounting when he has the option not to do so.

Reduced Quality and an Unlevel Playing Field Could Make Consumers Happier

We study a model of imperfect competition and limited production capacity in which a key feature is the trade-off between quality and quantity. In particular, lowering product quality enables firms to increase total production. We illustrate that, in the presence of limited capacity, the choice of lower quality often results in increased social welfare. We also explore the relation between the extent of competition and the choice of quality. We find that, in some cases, reduced competition leads to increased production, decreased average quality, increased total welfare, and makes consumers better off. Finally, we consider the possibility of regulator-mandated quality standards. Imposing high-quality standards never improves welfare in our model. On the other hand, mandating an upper bound on quality could either increase or decrease welfare in either a monopoly or a duopoly market.

Performance Evaluation and Corporate Income Taxes in a Sequential Delegation Setting

We consider a setting where a firm delegates an investment decision and, subsequently, a sales decision to a privately informed manager. For both decisions corporate income taxes have real effects. We show that compensating the manager based on pre-tax residual income can ensure after-tax NPV-maximization (“goal congruence”) for each decision problem in isolation. However, this metric fails if both decisions are nontrivial, since it requires asset-specific hurdle rates and hence precludes asset aggregation. After-tax residual income metrics (e.g., EVA) allow the firm to consistently apply its after-tax cost of capital as the hurdle rate to its aggregate asset base. We show that existing tax depreciation schedules may explain why firms in practice use more accelerated depreciation schedules than those suggested by previous studies. Our findings also rationalize the widespread use of “dirty surplus” accounting for windfall gains and losses for managerial retention purposes.