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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=DE link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText><span lang=EN-US>Dear All,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span lang=EN-US>we are happy to announce the following two presentations this week. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span lang=EN-US style='color:#1F497D'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>1.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span lang=EN-US>The Research Seminar in Economics takes place on Tuesday, January 22nd at 18:00 - 19:30 in room E03, ground floor, Mohlstraße 36.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=bodytext style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Presenter: <b>Jean-Marie Viaene </b>– Tinbergen Institute, Rotterdam<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=bodytext style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Title: "Public Funding of Higher Education" <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=Default style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>(joint work with Itzhak Zilcha)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US>Abstract:<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US>Recent criticism from different sides has expressed the view that, with scarce resources, there is little justification for massive public funding of higher education. Central to the debate is the conjecture that colleges and universities use their resources inefficiently and focus insufficiently on their mission to expand students’ human potential. Our aim in this paper is to examine the theoretical premises of this conjecture in a small open economy and uncover the conditions under which public investment in higher education is efficient and desirable. We analyze non-stationary equilibria of an OLG economy, characterized by perfect capital mobility, intergenerational transfers and a hierarchical education system. The government uses income tax revenues to finance basic education and support higher education that generates skilled labor. Given this, the following issues are considered: (a) the impact of education and international markets on the equilibrium number of low-skilled and skilled workers in each generation; (b) the economic efficiency of public subsidies to higher education in generating skilled human capital; (c) the endogenous support for a government’s educational policies found in a political equilibrium.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span lang=EN-US style='color:#1F497D'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>2.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span lang=EN-US>The Colloqium takes place on Wednesday, January 23rd at 18:00 - 19:30 in room E04, ground floor, Mohlstraße 36.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=Default style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=Default style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Presenter: Alfred Wagenhofer <b> </b>– University of Graz <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=Default style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=Default style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Title: "Accounting Conservatism and Board Efficiency" <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=Default style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>(joint work with Yanmin Gao)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US>Abstract:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-US>Accounting plays a major part in corporate governance in that it provides information, and thus transparency, which supports other corporate governance mechanisms. The paper focuses on the board of directors, which plays a crucial role in the corporate governance of firms and depends to a large extent on accounting information. In a two-period model, the board of directors decides to monitor the manager and to retain or replace the incumbent manager after the first period. The characteristics of the accounting system influence both decisions. We solve for the optimal board monitoring strategy and the bias of the accounting system that complements this strategy. Our main result is that if board monitoring is more effective, the optimal accounting system generally is conservative. The reason is that conservatism makes the favorable signal a very precise indicator that the manager is actually a good fit. In contrast, monitoring after observing a favorable signal does not reveal much additional information, but nevertheless incurs the monitoring cost. If the board is less effective or incurs a high monitoring cost, the optimal accounting system generally is liberal. We consider several extensions, including earnings management, moral hazard, and board incentives. In sum, the paper establishes that conservative accounting complements (rather than substitutes) effective board monitoring and provides a theoretical underpinning for empirical findings that find a positive association between strong corporate governance and conservatism.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Prof. Dr. Johannes Pfeifer<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>--<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>Johannes Pfeifer<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>Department of Economics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>University of Tuebingen<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>Mohlstrasse 36<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>72074 Tuebingen<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>Germany<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>Phone: +49 7071 29</span><span style='mso-fareast-language:DE'>74137<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>