This paper analyzes the behavior of stock prices around ex-dividend days after the implementation of the 1986 Tax Reform Act that dramatically reduced the difference between the tax treatment of realized long-term capital gains and dividend income in 1987 and completely eliminated the differential in 1988. The author shows that this tax change had no effect on the ex-dividend stock price behavior, which is consistent with the hypothesis that long-term individual investors have no significant effect on ex-day stock prices during this time period. The results indicate that the activity of short-term traders and corporate traders dominates the price determination on the ex-day.

Using proprietary data on the entire spectrum of ownership structure and exact tax status of investors and firms, we examine how dividend taxation affects payout. Utilizing an exogenous shock to dividend taxation, we show that absent any frictions, dividend taxation has a large impact on payout. As agency issues and shareholder conflicts increase, owners' tax preferences have significantly smaller impact on payout. Three mechanisms reduce the dividend-tax sensitivity: Coordination among owners, heterogeneity in tax preferences, and diverging objectives between managers and owners. Altogether, taxation has a first-order impact on payout, but agency issues and shareholder conflicts mute its impact substantially.

[To investigate the effect of taxation on stock price and trading volume around the ex-dividend day, we use the Italian stock market, where dividends on two classes of stock are taxed differently. We find that the weighted average of investors' tax rates is reflected in the ex-day prices and the variance of the relative tax rate across investors is reflected in the volume of trades. We also show that higher transaction costs result in higher ex-dividend day excess returns and lower abnormal volume. This finding is consistent with "profit elimination" activity by institutions and corporations.]

[We compare the dividend policies of publicly and privately held firms in order to help identify the forces shaping corporate dividends, and shed light on the behavior of privately held companies. We show that private firms smooth dividends significantly less than their public counterparts, suggesting that the scrutiny of public capital markets plays a central role in the propensity of firms to smooth dividends over time. Public firms pay relatively higher dividends that tend to be more sensitive to changes in investment opportunities than otherwise similar private firms. Ultimately, ownership structure and incentives play key roles in shaping dividend policies.]

[We document the cross-sectional properties of corporate dividend-smoothing policies and relate them to extant theories. We find that younger, smaller firms, firms with low dividend yields and more volatile earnings and returns, and firms with fewer and more disperse analyst forecasts smooth less. Firms that are cash cows, with low growth prospects, weaker governance, and greater institutional holdings, smooth more. We also document that dividend smoothing has steadily increased over the past 80 years, even before firms began using share repurchases in the mid-1980s. Taken together, our results suggest that dividend smoothing is most common among firms that are not financially constrained, face low levels of asymmetric information, and are most susceptible to agency conflicts. These findings provide challenges and guidance for the developing theoretical literature.]

We investigate the effect of asymmetric information on prices and liquidity by analyzing trades, quotes, spreads, and depths. Information content should increase with trade size and the information asymmetry of the trading period. Results show that price and liquidity effects are significantly associated with information content as measured by both trade size and timing relative to information events. Results are stronger for purchases than sales. Quoted prices are better measures of information effects than transaction prices, because they control for bid-ask bounce. Finally, trades that a priori contain no information have no impact on prices and liquidity, despite their large size.

[Brokerage analysts frequently comment on and sometimes recommend companies that their firms have recently taken public. We show that stocks that under-writer analysts recommend perform more poorly than "buy" recommendations by unaffiliated brokers prior to, at the time of, and subsequent to the recommendation date. We conclude that the recommendations by underwriter analysts show significant evidence of bias. We show also that the market does not recognize the full extent of this bias. The results suggest a potential conflict of interest inherent in the different functions that investment bankers perform.]

[We test a theory of the interaction between investors' heterogeneity, risk, transaction costs, and trading volume. We take advantage of the specific nature of trading motives around the distribution of cash dividends, namely the costly trading of tax shields. Consistent with the theory, we show that when trades occur because of differential valuation of cash flows, an increase in risk or transaction costs reduces volume. We also show that the nonsystematic risk plays a significant role in determining the volume of trade. Finally, we demonstrate that trading volume is positively related to the degree of heterogeneity and the incentives of the various groups to engage in trading.]

[We test the empirical implications of several models of IPO underpricing. Consistent with the winner's-curse hypothesis, we show that in markets where investors know a priori that they do not have to compete with informed investors, IPOs are not underpriced. We also show that IPOs underwritten by reputable investment banks experience significantly less underpricing and perform significantly better in the long run. We do not find empirical support for the signaling models that try to explain why firms underprice. In fact, we find that (1) firms that underprice more return to the reissue market less frequently, and for lesser amounts, than firms that underprice less, and (2) firms that underprice less experience higher earnings and pay higher dividends, contrary to the models' predictions.]

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the behavior of stock prices around ex‐dividend days after the implementation of the 1986 Tax Reform Act that dramatically reduced the difference between the tax treatment of realized long‐term capital gains and dividend income in 1987 and completely eliminated the differential in 1988. We show that this tax change had no effect on the ex‐dividend stock price behavior, which is consistent with the hypothesis that long‐term individual investors have no significant effect on ex‐day stock prices during this time period. The results indicate that the activity of short‐term traders and corporate traders dominates the price determination on the ex‐day.