Tax Equalization in Mutual Funds

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L. Gill ◽  
Christopher Schwarz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mutual Funds ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Additional Fund ◽  
Fund Families ◽  
As If

ABSTRACT By making an annual tax election, open-ended mutual funds can treat redeeming shareholders as if they have been allocated a pro-rata share of taxable gains, when in fact they have not (known as “equalization”). Equalization provides significant benefits to shareholders and funds; however, it also leads to additional fund-level costs. In this study, we use equalization elections to examine how managers weigh the costs and benefits of tax minimization. Overall, our results suggest both are important in the decision-making process. Even though funds and investors both benefit, only 10 percent of funds use equalization. Funds in larger fund families and with higher expense ratios, both proxies for the additional infrastructure necessary to calculate equalization dividends, are more likely to use equalization. Equalization is also used when its benefits are highest, such as by funds with greater redemptions and larger unrealized gains. Data Availability: Contact the first author.

scholarly journals Uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (31) ◽  
pp. 8658-8663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jillian J. Jordan ◽  
Moshe Hoffman ◽  
Martin A. Nowak ◽  
David G. Rand
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Present Experimental Evidence ◽  
Do So

Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an answer: people cooperate in an uncalculating way to signal their trustworthiness to observers. We present two economic game experiments in which uncalculating versus calculating decision-making is operationalized by either a subject’s choice of whether to reveal the precise costs of cooperating (Exp. 1) or the time a subject spends considering these costs (Exp. 2). In both experiments, we find that participants are more likely to engage in uncalculating cooperation when their decision-making process is observable to others. Furthermore, we confirm that people who engage in uncalculating cooperation are perceived as, and actually are, more trustworthy than people who cooperate in a calculating way. Taken together, these data provide the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, that uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness, and is not merely an efficient decision-making strategy that reduces cognitive costs. Our results thus help to explain a range of puzzling behaviors, such as extreme altruism, the use of ethical principles, and romantic love.

Board Ancestral Diversity and Firm-Performance Volatility

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 1117-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariassunta Giannetti ◽  
Mengxin Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Board Members ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
Industry Peers ◽  
Performance Volatility

We proxy for board members’ opinions and values using directors’ ancestral origins and show that diversity has costs and benefits, leading to high performance volatility. Consistent with the idea that diverse groups experiment more, firms with ancestrally diverse boards have more numerous and more cited patents. In addition, their strategies conform less to those of the industry peers. However, firms with greater ancestral diversity also have more board meetings and make less predictable decisions. These findings suggest that diversity may lead to inefficiencies in the decision-making process and conflicts in the boardroom.

scholarly journals Evaluating the feasibility of hydraulic and physical barriers at contaminated sites by means of multicriteria analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Gigliuto ◽  
Rudy Rossetto
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Multicriteria Analysis ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Technology Selection ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Contaminant Plumes ◽  
Analysis Methodology ◽  
Physical Barriers ◽  
Multi Criteria Analysis ◽  
Selection Of

Controlling contaminant plumes in groundwater using pump and treat or hydraulic and physical barriers is a common practice to contain and reduce solute contaminants in remediation activities. Recent evolution in engineering techniques also allowed to extend the number of solutions that can be designed and set in practice. As such, the decision-making process assumes great importance in leading the selection of the best suitable technology for a certain case study. This process has to take into account technical, environmental and socioeconomic factors. This paper presents the results of a research project aimed at defining a multi-criteria procedure analysis to support the decision-making process in the barrier technology selection, taking into account technical, economic, social and environmental factors. A multi-criteria analysis methodology has been defined to provide a quantitative tool to guide the selection of the best suitable technology concerning a specific case. The methodology was applied to a real case, selected from many case studies based on data availability and quality, in order to verify the effectiveness of the procedure in evaluating the alternative selections and to highlight the differences between the results of the multi-criteria analysis and the real engineers choices. A sensitivity analysis was performed to analyze the influence of each criterion on the final result of the study. With this paper we aim to start a discussion to deepen the decision making process, in order to develop methodologies allowing to chose the best solution without subjective evaluations.

Megaproject Decision Making and Management

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Priemus ◽  
Bert van Wee
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Ethical Aspects ◽  
Democratic Quality ◽  
Pros And Cons

This chapter focuses on ethical and political aspects of megaproject decision making and management. More specifically, it focuses on ethical aspects of the impacts of megaprojects on society, the ethics of doing research into the pros and cons of megaprojects, the quality of estimates of the costs and benefits of megaprojects, and the democratic quality of the decision-making process. Avenues for future research are then suggested. An overall conclusion is that ethical aspects of megaprojects are very important for society, but the topic has not received a great deal of attention from researchers yet.

The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal: What Lies Ahead?

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Weiner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
25Th Anniversary ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Political Expediency

AbstractThe Iran-United States Tribunal has recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Although it has resolved all of the cases brought by private claimants, it is still likely to be many more years before the Tribunal is able to complete the remaining government-to-government cases on its docket. There are multiple reasons why so much time will be required: the pending cases are extremely complex, the governments brief them slowly, and the Tribunal's decision-making process itself is slow. There does not for the foreseeable future appear to be an alternative to continued litigation, because the prospects of a global settlement of the remaining claims before the Tribunal are remote. The parties face challenges in developing reasonable assessments of the legal and economic costs and benefits of settlement. Beyond this, the strained political relations between the United States and Iran would make even a legally and economically rationale settlement extremely difficult to achieve. The challenge facing the Tribunal in the remaining years of its existence, in which the Iran and United States are the only parties before it, is to continue to decide cases in a principled fashion on the basis of the law and the facts, and to resist the temptation to reach compromise decisions in the interests of political expediency.

AAC Decision-Making and Mobile Technology: Points to Ponder

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Abbott ◽  
Debby McBride
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mobile Technology ◽  
Communication System ◽  
Augmentative And Alternative Communication ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Alternative Communication ◽  
Ipod Touch ◽  
Feature Match

The purpose of this article is to outline a decision-making process and highlight which portions of the augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) evaluation process deserve special attention when deciding which features are required for a communication system in order to provide optimal benefit for the user. The clinician then will be able to use a feature-match approach as part of the decision-making process to determine whether mobile technology or a dedicated device is the best choice for communication. The term mobile technology will be used to describe off-the-shelf, commercially available, tablet-style devices like an iPhone®, iPod Touch®, iPad®, and Android® or Windows® tablet.

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