Knowledge that Transforms

This article uses a sample of 120 unsuccessful management buyouts (MBOs) to test whether operational improvements following successful MBOs are a result of organizational changes or private information. The findings are consistent with the organizational changes hypothesis. Firms with an unsuccessful MBO had no increase in operating performance following the buyout attempt. In addition, the cumulative abnormal stock return from before the attempted buyout until two years after the attempt is insignificantly different from 0 percent. I also find that management turnover following an unsuccessful MBO is significantly higher than normal.

We investigate the cross-sectional relation between industry-sorted stock returns and expected inflation, and we find that this relation is linked to cyclical movements in industry output. Stock returns of noncyclical industries tend to covary positively with expected inflation, while the reverse holds for cyclical industries. From a theoretical perspective, we describe a model that captures both (i) the cross-sectional variation in these relations across industries, and (ii) the negative and positive relation between stock returns and inflation at short and long horizons, respectively. The model is developed in an economic environment in which the spirit of the Fisher model is preserved.

We propose an empirical method that utilizes the conditional density of the state variables to estimate and test a term structure model with known price formulae, using data on both discount and coupon bonds. The method is applied to an extension of a two-factor model due to Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985; CIR). Our results show that estimates based on only bills imply unreasonably large price errors for longer maturities. We reject the original CIR model using a likelihood ratio test, and conclude that the extended CIR model also fails to provide a good description of the Treasury market.

On May 26 and 27, 1994, several national newspapers reported the findings of Christie and Schultz (1994) who cannot reject the hypothesis that market makers of active NASDAQ stocks implicitly colluded to maintain spreads of at least $.25 by avoiding odd-eighth quotes. On May 27, dealers in Amgen, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft sharply increased their use of odd-eighth quotes, and mean inside and effective spreads fell nearly 50%. This pattern was repeated for Apple Computer the following trading day. Using individual dealer quotes for Apple and Microsoft, we find that virtually all dealers moved in unison to adopt odd-eighth quotes.

Baillie and Bollerslev (1989) have recently argued that nominal dollar spot exchange rates are cointegrated. Here we examine an immediate implication of their finding, namely, that cointegration implies an error-correction representation yielding forecasts superior to those from a martingale benchmark, in light of a large earlier literature highlighting the predictive superiority of the martingale. In an out-of-sample forecasting exercise, we find the martingale model to be superior. We then perform a battery of improved cointegration tests and find that the evidence for cointegration is much less strong than previously thought, a result consistent with the outcome of the forecasting exercise.

We propose a nonparametric method for estimating the pricing formula of a derivative asset using learning networks.Although not a substitute for the more traditional arbitrage-based pricing formulas, network pricing formulas may be more accurate and computationally more e cient alternatives when the underlying asset's price dynamics are unknown, or when the pricing equation associated with no-arbitrage condition cannot be solved analytically.T o assess the potential value of network pricing formulas, we simulate Black-Scholes option prices and show that learning networks can recover the Black-Scholes formula from a two-year training set of daily options prices, and that the resulting network formula can be used successfully to both price and delta-hedge options out-of-sample.For comparison, we estimate models using four popular methods: ordinary least squares, radial basis function networks, multilayer perceptron networks, and projection pursuit.To illustrate the practical relevance of our network pricing approach, we apply it to the pricing and delta-hedging of S&P 500 futures options from 1987 to 1991.

This article examines the effect of public information on the orange juice market. We investigate the rationality, information content, and price effects of U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts of the production of oranges. U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts are found to be unbiased and efficient. The first forecast contains the most new information, and subsequent reports become valuable only when freezes occur. Significant price movements occur in response to announced production in both Florida and California. However, the majority of price variations cannot be explained by these movements in supply. We are always talking about overproduction. There would not be any overproduction if we could get these oranges at a decent price to the people who … could use them . The children need them ; they have so many vitamins . By keeping the price way up nobody can buy them and God knows, we get nothing for them . I sold my Valencias for 10 cents a box . I was offered 50 cents, and I thought I would hold out a little until I finally sold them for 10 cents . 1

We evaluate journals based on their relative contributions to top-level finance research in a recent period. Journals are ranked according to the number of citations found in articles published in Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Review of Financial Studies. The analysis controls for both the average number of articles and average number of words published annually in each cited journal. We identify the fifty most frequently cited journals during this period. We also list the fifty most frequently cited authors and articles and note topical trends in the research.