The Marketing Department in the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University announces its annual Marketing Research Camp. It will be held on Friday, April 25th, 2007, in room 124 Business. Four prominent marketing academics will present their latest research.

Bryan Johnson & Kunter Gunasti will each give a talk about their research pertaining to their dissertations.

Lisa Versterlund, University of Pittsburgh, will present "Motives for Charitable Giving," by Lise Vesterlund, Mark Wilhelm and Huan Xie. Abstract: The literature on charitable giving distinguishes between the pure versus impure altruism model. The pure altruism model argues that the sole motive for giving is a concern for securing the charity’s output, whereas the impure altruism model allows for the possibility that a donor also gets a private benefit or warm glow from being the one who secures the contribution to the charity. While the past literature has focused on testing the pure altruism model, we design an experiment that enables an examination of both models, and thus improves our ability to identify the role played by the warm glow of giving. We test the motives for giving in an environment that closely mirrors those of the theoretical models, specifically each participant in the experiment singlehandedly determines the dollar amount to be transferred to a recipient of the charity. Our results show that participants behave as predicted by the impure altruism model, however the relative weight attached to the warm-glow of giving is very small.

Acctg. Research Colloquium

Fred Feinberg from the University of Michigan will be giving a talk for the Marketing Department as part of their Working Series.

Rick Bagozzi from the University of Michigan will come to the Marketing Department to give a talk as part of our working series

The Real Estate Seminar Series will sponsor a seminar by Christian Hilber, London School of Economics. Contact Brent Ambrose for more information.

Accounting Research Colloquium "The Relation Between Voluntary Disclosure and Financial Reporting: Evidence From Synthetic Leases"

"Real Time Disclosure Through Current Reports: The Case of Material Contracts"

Accounting Faculty Recruit Presentation "Taxes, Investor Sophistication, and the Disposition Effect"

Seminar with Michael Knoll Michael Knoll will present a seminar on Thursday, May 20 at 2:30 in room 214. Professor Knoll is the Theodore K. Warner Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Professor of Real Estate at the Wharton School. He will be discussing his research on the taxation of carried interests at a gathering jointly sponsored by Smeal's Insurance and Real Estate Department and the Dickinson School of Law. The abstract is below. Please contact Dan Cahoy (DanCahoy@psu.edu) with any questions. The Tax Advantage of "Sweat Equity": What it is and its Relationship to the Carried Interest Controversy Michael S. Knoll University of Pennsylvania A central feature in the ongoing controversy over the tax treatment of carried interests is the tax treatment of "sweat equity". Both reformers, who want to raise the tax levied on carried interests, and defenders of the status quo use analogies and comparisons to bolster their arguments. Reformers argue that carried interests are improperly being taxed more favorably than are paid services. They argue that private equity fund managers, who pay tax upon realization at long-term capital gains rates, are taxed less heavily than people who are paid salaries and invest their after-tax salaries in equities. In response, defenders of the status quo argue that carried interests should be taxed no less favorably than "sweat equity" – services provided by an owner of a business that are not compensated by current salary – which they assert is taxed as favorably as private equity currently is, but which they claim would be taxed more favorably than private equity if any of the various tax reform proposals were adopted. Thus, "sweat equity" is at the center of the controversy over the tax treatment of carried interests. Yet, in spite of the numerous claims being made about the tax advantage of "sweat equity," both on its own and relative to other forms of compensation, no one has spelled out carefully and specifically what is the tax advantage from "sweat equity." This essay identifies the source of the tax advantage from using "sweat equity." It, then, relates that advantage to the carried interest controversy.

Acctg. Research Colloquium "Earnings Management and the Predictive Ability of Accruals with Respect to Future Cash Flows"

Simon Blanchard & Anindita Chakravarty will each give talks that pertain to their dissertation research.

The LEMA/Elliott Seminar Series is sponsoring a seminar by Timothy Cason of Purdue. Contact Tony Kwasnica for more information.

Mahima Hada & Gaurav Sabnis will each give a talk pertaining to their dissertation research.

Accounting Research Colloquium

"Inter-firm Performance Measures, Supply Chain Performance and Incentive Contracts"

"Asset Substitution and Structured Financing"

"Forecasting with the term structure: The role of no-arbitrage"

Peter Fader from the Warton School of Business will be here to lead a discussion. More details will follow.

"Chief Executive Officer Equity Incentives and Accounting Irregularities"

"Plain English and Investor Trading"

"The Use of Advertising Activities to Meet Earnings Benchmarks: Evidence From Monthly Data"

"The Reporting of Contingent Legal Liabilities"

"Information Content of Insider Trades: Before and After the Sarbanes-Oxley Act"

"Do Cross-Listed Firms Provide the Same Quality Disclosure as U.S. Firms? Evidence From the Internal Control Deficiency Dislcosure Under Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act"

"Catering Through Nominal Share Prices"

"Cross-sectional Determinants of Information Quality Proxies and Cost of Capital Measures"

"Unintended Consequences of Scaling Securities Regulation: Evidence from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act"

Accounting Research Colloquium Paper Title: "Pessimistic Analysts' Timing Their Earnings Forecasts: An Alternative Explanation of the Walk-Down in Consensus Forecasts"

conference

Accounting Research Colloquium "Determinants of the Speed of Information Dissemination by Capital Market Information Intermediaries"

Accounting Research Colloquium "Does Auditor Reputation Matter? The Case of KPMG Germany and Comroad AG"

BA 411 Student Competition

"The Marketing Role of Managing Underwriters in Seasoned Equity Offerings," by D.H. Zhang, Penn State University