Knowledge that Transforms

We explain the observed negative relation between market value of firms and their fund raising activities. Ours is not a signalling model. The firm's objective is to maximize the present value of its income. Considerations of cash availability (liquidity) and unfolding of uncertainty drive our model. Income from operations is an important source of liquidity. Low earnings are associated with low liquidity. Whether earnings are low or not is known to some extent in advance of the realization itself. External financing is pursued in anticipation of the earnings' realization in order to maintain a desired level of liquidity. Therefore, anticipated low earnings are associated with a high level of external financing. Of course, an anticipation of low earnings is also accompanied by a decrease in the firm's value. The empiricist who looks at time series of a firm's value and of its dividend/external financing announcements would then record positive correlation between value and cash distributions and negative correlation between value and external financing.

In this paper, we show that taxes motivate the flow of trade credit without involving the assumption of credit market imperfections. The direction of trade credit flow depends on the distribution of marginal tax rates among buyers and sellers. In equilibrium, the trade credit decision follows a tax‐induced clientele on both the supply and demand side.

Through the use of laboratory market methodology, the effect of a futures market on the time path of asset prices is studied and competing models of asset pricing are analyzed. With replication of market conditions, the predictions of a rational expectations equilibrium model are relatively accurate whether or not futures markets are present. However, the presence of futures markets increases the speed with which an efficient equilibrium is achieved. While this more rapid adjustment can increase the variance of spot market prices as they move to equilibrium, this increased variance reflects efficiency gains due to better information.

This study of financing decisions by U.S. corporations examines the issuance of long term debt, issuance of short term debt, maintenance of corporate liquidity, issuance of new equity, and payment of dividends. Given costs and imperfections inherent in markets, a firm's financial behavior is characterized as partial adjustment to long run financial targets. Individual firm data are used so that speeds of adjustment are allowed to vary by company and over time. The results suggest that financial decisions are interdependent and that firm size, interest rate conditions, and stock price levels affect speeds of adjustment.

This paper examines the impact of the money supply and inflation rate announcements on interest rates. Survey data on expectations of the money supply and consumer and producer price indexes are used to distinguish anticipated and unanticipated components of the announcements. This distinction is used to test for the efficiency of the financial market response to the announcements of new information. The results indicate that the unanticipated components of the announced changes in the Producers Price Index and in the money supply have an immediate positive effect on short‐term interest rates. The Consumer Price Index announcement has no apparent effect. There is no evidence of a delayed announcement effect. However, there is some indication of a liquidity effect of the money supply change on interest rates. This takes place when reserves are changing and several weeks prior to the information announcement.

This paper focuses on the role of scalpers as marketmakers in the competitive auction of futures exchanges. We use transactions data of a representative scalper to identify the source of scalper earnings. We find that scalpers provide liquidity services to incoming market orders, thereby facilitating commercial hedging. Scalper earnings are positively related to the bid‐asked spread and negatively related to the length of time a position is held.

Recently, the case for international portfolio diversification has been convincingly argued in the framework of mean‐variance portfolio analysis by a number of researchers. However, virtually no empirical documentation exists concerning the best method for estimating the correlation structure of international share prices. In this paper, 12 models for estimating the international correlation matrix are presented and empirically tested relative to full historical extrapolation. The major evaluation criteria are the mean squared error and stochastic dominance based on the frequency distribution of the squared forecast errors. The results indicate that the National Mean Model strictly dominates all the others in terms of forecasting accuracy.