Working Papers

These papers are working drafts of research which often appear in final form in academic journals. The published versions may differ from the working versions provided here.

SSRN Research Paper Series

The Social Science Research Network’s Research Paper Series includes working papers produced by Stanford GSB the Rock Center.

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Reinforcement Behavior in Repeated Games

Jonathan Bendor (1950–2025), Dilip Mookherjee, Debraj Ray
1998

This paper describes behavior conventions that are stable long run outcomes of reinforcement behavior rules in two-person repeated games. Each player plays the repeated game with a fixed but endogenous aspiration, a payoff level that is…

Relative Valuation Roles of Equity Book Value and Net Income as a Function of Financial Health

Mary E. Barth, William H. Beaver (1940–2024), Wayne Landsman
1998

This study tests predictions that pricing multiples on an incremental explanatory power of equity book value (net income) increase (decrease) as financial health decreases. Tests using a sample of 396 bankrupt firms and a larger, pooled sample…

Resource Commitment, Entry Timing and Market Performance of Foreign Direct Investments in Emerging Economies: The Case of Japanese International Joint Ventures in China

David Bruce Montgomery (1938–2025), Takehiko Isobe, Shige Makino
1998

As emerging economic regions (EERs) play a significant role in global economies, managers of multinationals have become increasingly aware of the importance of relevant international expansion in these regions. Facing potential market…

Revaluations of Fixed Assets and Future Firm Performance: Evidence from the U.K.

Mary E. Barth, Ron Kasznik, David Aboody
1998

This paper tests whether revaluations of fixed assets by U.K. firms are associated with changes in firms’ underlying economic fundamentals. We find, as predicted, that upwards fixed asset revaluations under U.K. GAAP are significantly positively…

Revalued Financial, Tangible, and Intangible Assets: Associations with Share Prices and Non Market-Based Value Estimates

Mary E. Barth, Greg Clinch
1998

This study investigates whether the relevance, reliability, and timeliness of Australian asset revaluation differ across types of assets, including investments, property, plant, and equipment, and intangibles. We also investigate whether they…

Security Analysts' Career Concerns and Herding of Earnings Forecasts

Harrison Hong, Jeffrey Kubik, Amit Solomon
1998

Several theories of reputation and herding (see, e.g., Scharfstein and Stein (1990), Zwiebel (1995), and Prendergast and Stole (1996) predict that herding among agents should vary with career concerns. Our goal in this paper is to test for this…

Shopping Behavior and Consumer Preference for Store Price Format: Why 'Large Basket' Shoppers Prefer EDLP

James M. Lattin, David Bell
1998

In recent years, the supermarket industry has become increasingly competitive. One outcome has been the proliferation of a variety of pricing formats, and considerable debate about how these formats affect consumers’ store choice behavior. This…

Social Capital at Work: Networks and Hiring at a Phone Center

Roberto M. Fernandez, Emilio Castilla, Paul C. Moore
1998

We argue that a common organizational practice—the hiring new workers via employee referrals—provides key insights into the notion of social capital. Employers who use such hiring methods are quintessential “social capitalists,” viewing workers’…

Strategic Roles and Performance of Japanese Subsidiaries

David Bruce Montgomery (1938–2025), Takehiko Isobe
1998

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors affecting the performance of Japanese overseas subsidiaries. The following five factors are incorporated in the model: subsidiary location, characteristics of parent company, ownership levels and…

Strategy, Organization, and Incentives: Global Corporate Banking at Citibank

David P. Baron, David Besanko
1998

This paper addresses the interplay of strategy, organization, and incentives in a global company. The basic framework takes one step further Chandler’s perspective that structure follows strategy by incorporating incentives chosen in response to…

Sustaining Technology Leadership Can Require Both Cost Competence and Innovative Competence

Glen M. Schmidt, Evan L. Porteus
1998

Some firms, particularly in high-tech, appear to view technology and cost leadership as separate and distinct ways of achieving high profiles within a given product market. In contrast, we develop a model of technology competition suggesting that…

Temporal Differentiation and the Market for Second Opinions

Miklos Sarvary
1998

This paper studies the pricing of “private information”, that is information which is of value only (or mainly) for a specific consumer. In private information markets, firms are familiar with their client’s decision problem and consumers…

The Association Between Earnings Sensitivity Measures and Market Determined Risk Exposures: The Case of Oil Price Risk for Petroleum Refiners

Shivaram Rajgopal, Mohan Venkatachalam
1998

Using a sample of petroleum refining firms, this paper provides evidence that earnings sensitivity measures analogous to those mandated by the SEC’s (1997) new market risk disclosure rules are positively associated with stock market determined…

The Boundaries of the Firm Revisited

John Roberts (1945–2026), Bengt Holmstrom
1998

Both Transaction Cost Economics and Property Rights Theories offer explanations of the boundaries of the firm based on ideas of ex post bargaining and hold-up. These theories are quite distinct in their empirical predictions, but neither offers a…

The Characteristics and Valuation of Loss Reserves of Property Casualty Insurers

Maureen McNichols, William H. Beaver (1940–2024)
1998

The extent to which management influences accounting recognized in financial statements and the extent to which investors are able to identify such influence are fundamental questions in financial reporting research. This study contributes to…

The Closing of the American Mind Versus the Closing of the Chinese Mind: The Impact of Need for Cognitive Closure on Social Attribution Varies Across Cultures as a Function of Implicit Theories

Michael W. Morris, Chi-yue Chiu, Ying-yi Hong, Tanya Menon
1998

We propose that need for closure (NFC) leads attributors to respond to an ambiguous social stimulus by increasing reliance on implicit theories received from acculturation. Hence, the influence of NFC should be shaped by the knowledge structures…

The Evolution of Norms

Jonathan Bendor (1950–2025), Piotr Swistak
1998

This paper analyzes the emergence of norms from an evolutionary perspective. It is hypothesized that norms diffuse not necessarily because they are functional for the communities in which they are embedded but because in certain selection…

The Predictive Power of Internet-Based Product Concept Testing Using Visual Depiction and Animation

V. “Seenu” Srinivasan, Ely Dahan
1998

We measure the predictive accuracy of Internet-based product concept testing that incorporates virtual prototypes of new products. The method employs a two-factor conjoint analysis of prototypes and prices to enable a design team to select the…

The Role of Book Value in Equity Valuation: Does the Stock Variable Merely Proxy for Relevant Past Flows?

Mohan Venkatachalam
1998

We propose an alternative explanation for the value-relevance of book value. Specifically, we suggest that book value can have an indirect role in valuation even under an earnings capitalization framework. We first show that past earnings are…

The Tobacco Deal

Jeremy I. Bulow, Paul Klemperer
1998

Abstract not available.