Knowledge that Transforms

We argue that in the after-market trading of an IPO, the underwriting syndicate, by standing ready to buy back shares at the offer price ("price stabilization"), compensates uninformed investors ex post for the adverse selection cost they face in bidding for IPOs. This domi? nates ex ante compensation by underpricing. The reason is that stabilization exploits ex post information about investor demand whereas underpricing must be based on ex ante infor? mation. However, liquidity and syndication costs constrain the use of stabilization which, in equilibrium, generates some underpricing as well. We develop a model that formalizes this intuition and generates several empirical implicatio

Pete Clarkson, Jose Guedes, Rex Thompson, On the Diversification, Observability, and Measurement of Estimation Risk, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 69-84

Louis H. Ederington, Jae Ha Lee, The Creation and Resolution of Market Uncertainty: The Impact of Information Releases on Implied Volatility, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1996), pp. 513-539

Robin J. Brenner, Richard H. Harjes, Kenneth F. Kroner, Another Look at Models of the Short-Term Interest Rate, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 85-107

This paper describes the application ofthe Principle of Maximum Entropy to the estimation of the distribution of an underlying asset from a set of option prices. The resulting distri? bution is least committal with respect to unknown or missing information and is, hence, the least prejudiced. The maximum entropy distribution is the only information about the asset that can be inferred from the price data alone. An extension to the Principle of Mini? mum Cross-Entropy allows the inclusion of prior knowledge of the asset distribution. We show that the maximum entropy distribution is able to accurately fit a known density, given simulated option prices at different strikes.

Using approximately 10,000 firms jointly covered by Compustat and CRSP from 1974–1993, we find substantial differences in the SIC codes designated by the two databases. More than 36 percent of the classifications disagree at the two-digit level and nearly 80 percent disagree at the four-digit level. We examine the impact of these differences upon financial research in several ways. First, we show that the classification of utilities, financial firms, and conglomerate acquisitions are affected by the choice of CRSP vs. Compustat SIC codes. Second, we show that industry classification matters in financial research by illustrating that size- and industry-matched comparisons are more powerful than pure size matches. Third, we test the specification and power of Compustat vs. CRSP classifications by simulating a typical financial experiment in which sample firms are matched to control firms by industry. We find that: i) Compustat matched samples are more powerful than CRSP matched samples in detecting abnormal performance; ii) nonparametric tests outperform parametric tests; and iii) four-digit SIC code matches are more powerful than two-digit SIC code matches. These results are robust to the inclusion or exclusion of extreme values, and hold for both NYSE/AMEX and Nasdaq firms.

We observe significant post-split excess returns of 7.93 percent in the first year and 12.15 percent in the first three years for a sample of 1,275 two-for-one stock splits. These excess returns follow an announcement return of 3.38 percent, indicating that the market underreacts to split announcements. The evidence suggests that splits realign prices to a lower trading range, but managers self-select by conditioning the decision to split on expected future performance. Presplit runup and post-split excess returns are inversely related, indi? cating that our results are not caused by momentum.

Lawrence Harris, Joel Hasbrouck, Market vs. Limit Orders: The SuperDOT Evidence on Order Submission Strategy, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 213-231

This paper documents a strong positive relation between the percentage of outside directors and the frequency of outside CEO succession. The likelihood that an executive from outside the firm is appointed CEO increases monotonically with the percentage of outside directors. This monotonic relation is observed for both voluntary and forced departures. Evidence from stock returns around succession announcements indicates that, on average, shareholders benefit from outside appointments, but are harmed when an insider replaces a fired CEO.

This paper provides empirical evidence on the determinants of corporate hedging decisions. The paper examines the evidence in light of currently mandated financial reporting requirements and, in particular, the constraints placed on anticipatory hedging. Data on hedging are obtained from 1992 annual reports for a sample of 3,022 firms. Out of the 771 firms classified as hedgers, 543 firms disclose information in their annual reports on their hedging activities; the remaining 228 firms report use of derivatives but no information on hedging activities. Based on the evidence, I draw the following conclusions with respect to the models of hedging: evidence is inconsistent with financial distress cost models; evidence is mixed with respect to contracting cost, capital market imperfections, and tax-based models; and evidence uniformly supports the hypothesis that hedging activities exhibit economies of scale.