The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.

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Taxes and the Fisher Effect: A Clarifying Analysis

Published: 03/01/1983   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1983.tb03626.x

JAMES A. MILES

Supply and demand functions for loanable funds are postulated for a no‐inflation economy and equilibrium levels of saving, investment, and the interest rate are specified. Certainty and nondepreciating assets are assumed. An exogenous inflation rate is imposed upon this same economy and new equilibrium values for these same variables are established. The analysis is performed twice. The first time, a Modigliani‐Miller [17] tax structure is assumed while the second analysis assumes a Miller‐Scholes [15] tax structure. In both cases, inflation causes the nominal rate to increase by more than the inflation rate. The analysis is repeated assuming that investments live for one period and are then written off against taxable income at historical cost. In both tax structures, the level of saving and investment is a decreasing function of the inflation rate.


The Effect of Voluntary Spin‐off Announcements on Shareholder Wealth

Published: 12/01/1983   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1983.tb03843.x

JAMES A. MILES, JAMES D. ROSENFELD

This paper presents estimates of the effect of a voluntary spin‐off announcement on shareholder wealth. The results show that spin‐off announcements have a positive influence on stock prices and that the relative increase in share price is greater for large spin‐offs than for small ones.


Reformulating Tax Shield Valuation: A Note

Published: 12/01/1985   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb02396.x

JAMES A. MILES, JOHN R. EZZELL

Standard financial theory (in the absence of agency costs and personal taxes) implies that each dollar of debt contributes to the value of the firm in proportion to the firm's tax rate. To derive this result, incremental debt is assumed permanent. This paper shows that when the firm acts to maintain a constant market value leverage ratio, the marginal value of debt financing is much lower than the corporate tax rate. Since Hamada's [2] unlevering procedure for observed equity betas was derived under the assumption of permanent debt, we derive an unlevering procedure consistent with the assumption of a constant leverage ratio.