Knowledge that Transforms

Previous empirical studies that decompose the bid-ask spread were done when securities traded in discrete price points equal to one-sixteenth or one-eighth of a dollar. These studies concluded that inventory and adverse-selection costs were economically insignificant compared to order-processing costs. Natural questions arise as to: (i) whether price discreteness allowed market makers to enjoy excess rents, thus reducing the significance of the inventory and adverse selection costs; (ii) whether discreteness decreased the traders' incentives to gather information; or (iii) whether methodologies previously employed mis-estimated the inventory and the adverse-selection costs. We show that the recent conversion to decimal pricing results in significantly tighter spreads. However, the dollar value of spreads attributed to adverse selection and inventory costs do not change significantly. Almost all of the reduction occurs in the order-processing component. As a result, inventory and adverse-selection costs now account for a significantly larger proportion of the traded spreads. A plausible explanation is that the minimum tick size constraint previously in place under fractional pricing allowed market makers to enjoy spreads that were larger than their actual costs.

This study resolves the puzzling evidence on convertible bonds by documenting that conversion-forcing calls are indeed bad news. We find that the common stocks of calling firms substantially underperform their benchmarks by a median of 64% over the five-year post-call period. In contrast, firms that choose not to call their in-the-money convertibles exhibit no long-run abnormal performance. We show that studies drawing conclusions based on short-term price reversal immediately following the call fail to completely capture the valuation effect that occurs over a longer time horizon. We document that the market condition at the time of the call (issuance volume) and cash flow benefits related to the call (relation between dividend and after tax coupon payment) influence the post-call stock price performance. Our analysis also reveals that the post-call underperformance of high-growth firms is more pronounced than that of low-growth firms, indicating greater market exuberance associated with high-growth firms at the time of the call.

We provide estimates of the equity capital needed and the resulting tax costs incurred when supplying catastrophe insurance/reinsurance using a partial equilibrium model that incorporates a specific loss distribution for US catastrophe losses. After consideration of insurer investment in tax-exempt securities, tax loss carry-back/forward provisions, and personal taxes, our results imply that the tax costs of equity finance alone have a substantial effect on the cost of supplying catastrophe reinsurance. These results help explain a variety of industry developments that reduce tax costs. Also, when coupled with non-tax costs of capital, these results help explain the limited scope of catastrophe insurance/reinsurance.