Marking to Market versus Taking to Market

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2018
Volume: 108
Issue: 8
Pages: 2246-76

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Building on the idea that accounting matters for corporate governance, this paper studies the equilibrium interaction between the measurement rules that firms find privately optimal, firms' governance, and the liquidity in the secondary market for their assets. This equilibrium approach reveals an excessive use of market-value accounting: corporate performance measures rely excessively on the information generated by other firms' asset sales and insufficiently on the realization of a firm's own capital gains. This dries up market liquidity and reduces the informativeness of price signals, thereby making it more costly for firms to overcome their agency problems.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:108:y:2018:i:8:p:2246-76
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-29