To evaluate early embryo development, 248 good to excellent bovine morulae were cultured in Ham's F-10 medium, supplemented with 10% steer serum, uterine flushings from Days 6, 10 or 15 following estrus (0.01, 0.1, 1.0 and 10% protein; 64 mg protein/ml), and 1.0% uterine flushings and 10% steer serum. Final development scores for embryos in steer serum were significantly higher (range across experiments was: 4.06 to 4.37) than for embryos cultured in uterine flushings alone (-0.23 to 0.52). Treatment means were not different (P >0.05) when 10% steer serum was added to 1.0% uterine flushings. A higher percentage of embryos in 10% steer serum (92%) than in 10% steer serum plus 1.0% uterine flushing from Day 6 (33%), Day 10 (45%) and Day 15 (50%) developed to hatched blastocysts. Embryos cultured in 1.0% Day 6 uterine flushings plus 10% steer serum required more time to attain the early blastocyst and blastocyst stages, while embryos in 1.0% Day 15 uterine flushings and 10% steer serum developed at the same rate as controls to the expanded blastocyst stage, but hatched sooner (72.8 vs 96.5 h). These results suggest substance(s) in uterine secretions can have inhibitory and stimulatory influences on early bovine embryo development.

After a large bank merger, the compensation of the surviving bank's CEO often increases materially. Theories of executive compensation based on managerial productivity and optimal incentives suggest that changes in CEO compensation are related to the potential gains from merger. Alternatively, compensation gains might result from an increase in bank size regardless of whether the merger creates value. We examine mergers among billion-dollar banks in the 1990s and find results consistent with managerial productivity. Specifically, we show empirically that changes in CEO compensation after mergers are positively related to anticipated gains from merger measured at the announcement date. Other changes in the structure of compensation are also consistent with hypotheses based on managerial productivity and incentive restructuring.

Each trader must choose between a limit order, a market order, or using a floor broker. We hypothesize that informed investors will: (1) concentrate their trading in floor broker orders and (2) sometimes trade patiently. Consistent with our hypotheses, empirical results suggest that most informed trading occurs through orders executed by floor brokers and that informed floor brokers are sometimes patient. Regardless of their patience, however, quote revisions following trade executions are consistent with the hypothesis that markets recognize that floor traders are more likely to be informed than other traders. As a result, informed trading moves equilibrium security values.

This paper reviews the extant empirical studies of financial innovation. Adopting broad criteria and spanning a long time horizon, we found surprisingly few studies (39), with most (23) having been conducted since 1998. Especially striking is that only two studies test hypotheses advanced in many descriptive articles as to the economic/environmental conditions that encourage financial innovation. We offer conjectures as to why empirical studies of financial innovation are comparatively rare, including as a culprit the absence of accessible data. We urge financial regulators to undertake more surveys of financial innovation and to make the resulting data available to researchers.

This study contributes to the literature on the role of the board by investigating the effect of board composition on the practice of earnings management in Canada. We find that earnings are managed upward to avoid reporting losses and earnings declines. While outside directors, as a whole, do not reduce abnormal accruals, directors from financial intermediaries reduce earnings management, and the board representation of active institutional shareholders reduces it further. We do not find that monitoring of abnormal accruals by outside directors, as a whole, or by directors from financial institutions is more effective after the issuance of the Toronto Stock Exchange's Corporate Governance Guidelines of 1994. Finally, we do not find that earnings management decreases with the average tenure of outside directors as board members of the firm, either. Our findings suggest that adding outside directors to the board may not achieve improvement in governance practices by itself, especially in jurisdictions where ownership is highly concentrated and the outside directors' labor market may not be well developed.

We investigate external and internal corporate governance activity observed at Japanese banks over 1985–1996. External governance appears to be inactive, and even after the onset of the banking crisis of the 1990s there are few mergers, failures, and other changes in ownership and control. Prior to the banking crisis we do not find a relation between bank performance and executive turnover. In contrast, non-routine turnover of bank presidents is inversely related to both stock returns and profitability in the 1990s. Consequently, internal governance activity is observable following the onset of the Japanese banking crisis, a period otherwise characterized by inactive external governance and regulatory forbearance.