Knowledge that Transforms

[We provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of stock price behavior around the ex-dividend day in Japan. We find that prices rise on the ex-day and that dividend-related tax effects appear to be secondary. Returns around ex-dividend days are dominated by the proximity of many ex-days to the fiscal year end. Excess returns of 1 percent, which are independent of any dividend-related considerations, are higher than round-trip transaction costs on medium-sized transactions. Prices seem to imply selling pressure before and buying pressure at the start of the new fiscal year. These trading patterns appear to be motivated by intercorporate manipulative trading around the end of the firms' fiscal year, which are unrelated to dividends.]

[This article presents a new model of mortgage prepayments, based on rational decisions by mortgage holders. These mortgage holders face heterogeneous transaction costs, which are explicitly modeled. The model is estimated using a version of Hansen's (1982) generalized method of moments, and is shown to capture many of the empirical features of mortgage prepayment. Estimation results indicate that mortgage holders act as though they face transaction costs that far exceed the explicit costs usually incurred on refinancing. They also wait an average of more than a year before refinancing, even when it is optimal to do so. The model fits observed prepayment behavior as well as the recent empirical model of Schwartz and Torous (1989). Implications for pricing mortgage-backed securities are discussed.]