Knowledge that Transforms

Prior studies report lower issue costs for shelf registered debt and conclude that the benefits of increased underwriter competition can be realized by those firms using this registration procedure. This study reexamines the purported superiority of issuing debt via shelf registration, and finds that the savings in issue costs displayed by earlier studies can be attributed to a self-selection bias and not the method of registration.

This paper examines the optimal structure of financial contracts in an economy subject to two forms of moral hazard. Multiple information problems are shown to generate a role for multiple classes of financial claimants. The author then shows that economic efficiency is enhanced if the financial structure of the economy consists of both direct and intermediated financial contract markets. Consequently, his results demonstrate a motivation for the complementarity between capital markets and depository financial institutions.

For homothetic time and state separable preferences, the coefficient of relative risk aversion is equal to the reciprocal of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. This paper shows that, when the growth rate of consumption is independent and identically distributed, asset pricing models based upon preferences in which the coefficient of relative risk aversion and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution are no longer linked do not have more explanatory power. Further, in these stochastic environments, estimates of the coefficient of relative risk aversion in the standard preferences are measures of the true coefficient of relative risk aversion and not the elasticity of intertemporal substitutions. These results are fairly accurate descriptions of economies calibrated using United States annual data.

Some closed-end country funds trade at large premiums relative to their net asset values. This paper examines whether international investment restrictions raise country fund-price-net-asset value ratios by segmenting international capital markets. The authors test whether a relation exists between announcements of changes in investment restrictions and changes in these ratios using weekly data from May 1981 to January 1989. The results provide evidence that some foreign markets are at least partially segmented from the U.S. capital markets. Coauthors are Greggory Brauer, Robert Neal, and Simon Wheatley.

This paper shows that target shareholders can be made better-off through the use of certain types of defensive strategies that reduce the value of the target by different amounts for different bidders. In many cases, simply the threat of such strategies can make target shareholders better-off. Therefore, empirical tests based on stock price reactions at the adoption of defensive strategies may be underestimating the effect of such strategies. The paper also identifies the necessary characteristics that make these strategies effective and shows that many observed defenses possess similar properties.

This paper provides clear evidence of substantial tax effects on the choice between issuing debt or equity; most studies fail to find significant effects. The relationship between tax shields and debt policy is clarified. Other papers miss the fact that most tax shields have a negligible effect on the marginal tax rate for most firms. New predictions are strongly supported by an empirical analysis; the method is to study incremental financing decisions using discrete choice analysis. Previous researchers examined debt/equity ratios, but tests based on incremental decisions should have greater power.

In this paper, the authors document regularities in trading patterns of individual and institutional investors related to the day of the week. They find a relative increase in trading activity by individuals on Mondays. In addition, there is a tendency for individuals to increase the number of sell transactions relative to buy transactions, which might explain at least part of the weekend effect.

This paper examines whether futures market data can be used to understand the behavior of real interest rates. Several ways of examining the data indicate that futures market data are not particularly informative about real interest rates. No only does this evidence cast some doubt on results in previous research that make use of futures market data to draw inferences about real interest rates, but it also indicates that future research on real interest rates may need to turn to a different line of attack.

The authors investigate a class of agency costs of debt that arise because debt financing affects the firm's incentives to use inputs efficiently. A methodology for estimating this class of costs is presented and applied to a major industry–air transport. The authors' results are consistent with agency models that predict a decrease in efficiency as the debt increases. A part of the loss of efficiency that they identify is attributable to the greater use by levered firms of inputs that can be monitored and are collateralizable.

On the trading day prior to holidays, stocks advance with disproportionate frequency and show high mean returns averaging nine to fourteen times the mean return for the remaining days of the year. Over one third of the total return accruing to the market portfolio over the 1963-82 period was earned on the eight trading days that fall before holiday market closings each year. Examination of hourly preholiday stock returns reveals high returns throughout the day. Preholiday stock returns in the posttest 1983-86 period are also examined.