Prior research concludes that option introductions improve the average liquidity of the underlying stocks. We develop an improved, generalizable test to assess whether market quality changes occur on or near an event date. Applying this method to option listing events, we conclude that options do not systematically improve the market quality of the underlying security; rather, the market quality of the underlying security improves before the listing decision. Hazard model tests indicate that improving liquidity is a selection criterion in the option listing decision. Moreover, these tests suggest that the size of a stock's bid-ask spread is the single most important option listing determinant.

If stocks were severely undervalued in the late 1970s and early 1980s, then the bull market starting in 1982 was partly just a correction to more normal valuation levels. This paper tests the hypothesis that investors suffer from inflation illusion, resulting in the undervaluation of equities in the presence of inflation, with levered firms being undervalued the most. Using firm level data and a residual income/EVA model, we find evidence that errors in the valuation of levered firms during inflationary times result in depressed stock prices. Our misvaluation measure can be used with expected inflation to make statistically reliable predictions for real returns on the Dow during the subsequent year. Our model suggests that stocks were overvalued at the end of the 1990s.

We find that equity mispricing impacts the speed at which firms adjust to their target leverage (TL) and does so in predictable ways depending on whether the firm is over- or underlevered. For example, firms that are above their TL and should therefore issue equity (or retire debt) adjust more rapidly toward their target when their equity is overvalued. However, when a firm is undervalued but needs to reduce leverage, the speed of adjustment is much slower. Our findings support the role of equity mispricing as an important factor that alters the cost of making capital structure adjustments.