We investigate the empirical implications of using various measures of payout yield rather than dividend yield for asset pricing models. We find statistically and economically significant predictability in the time series when payout (dividends plus repurchases) and net payout (dividends plus repurchases minus issuances) yields are used instead of the dividend yield. Similarly, we find that payout (net payout) yields contains information about the cross section of expected stock returns exceeding that of dividend yields, and that the high minus low payout yield portfolio is a priced factor.

Bloomfield and Hales (2002) find strong evidence that experimental market subjects are influenced by trends and patterns in a manner supportive of the shifting regimes model of Barberis, Shleifer, and Vishny (1998) . We subject the model to further empirical scrutiny using the football wagering market as our price laboratory. Sports betting markets have several advantages over traditional capital markets as an empirical setting, and commonalities with traditional markets allow for useful insights. We find scant evidence that investors behave in accordance with the model.

We find that employee stock option deductions lead to large aggregate tax savings for Nasdaq 100 and S&P 100 firms and also affect corporate marginal tax rates. For Nasdaq firms, including the effect of options reduces the estimated median marginal tax rate from 31% to 5%. For S&P firms, in contrast, option deductions do not affect marginal tax rates to a large degree. Our evidence suggests that option deductions are important nondebt tax shields and that option deductions substitute for interest deductions in corporate capital structure decisions, explaining in part why some firms use so little debt.

We examine the expiration of the IPO quiet period, which occurs after the 25th calendar day following the offering. For IPOs during 1996 to 2000, we find that analyst coverage is initiated immediately for 76 percent of these firms, almost always with a favorable rating. Initiated firms experience a five‐day abnormal return of 4.1 percent versus 0.1 percent for firms with no coverage. The abnormal returns are concentrated in the days just before the quiet period expires. Abnormal returns are much larger when coverage is initiated by multiple analysts. It does not matter whether a recommendation comes from the lead underwriter or not.

We provide evidence that corporate tax status is endogenous to financing decisions, which induces a spurious relation between measures of financial policy and many commonly used tax proxies. Using a forward‐looking estimate of before‐financing corporate marginal tax rates, we document a negative relation between operating leases and tax rates, and a positive relation between debt levels and tax rates. This is the first unambiguous evidence supporting the hypothesis that low tax rate firms lease more, and have lower debt levels, than high tax rate firms.

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Less-informed investors face greater costs of processing earnings news into actionable information. Our findings suggest financial analysis on social media reduces less-informed investors’ disclosure processing costs. We document an attenuated spike in earnings announcement (EA) information asymmetry for quarters containing more financial analysis on social media in the weeks prior to the EA. Cross-sectional evidence suggests this finding is stronger when coverage from traditional intermediaries is lower, for financial analyses written by more credible authors, and for financial analyses that are more likely relevant to evaluating the EA. Further evidence suggests retail trades, but not institutional trades, at EAs are significantly more profitable in quarters with greater financial analysis on social media, consistent with financial analysis on social media benefitting traders who are otherwise less-informed. Overall, our evidence suggests that financial analysis on social media plays an important role in aiding less-informed investors by helping them better process EA news.