This study investigates the returns to acquiring-firm stockholders in federally assisted mergers in the savings and loan industry. It is unique in that (a) these mergers are arranged and subsidized by government regulators and (b) they occur in a single industry, one plagued by well-publicized financial difficulties. The contribution of resources by the federal government creates the possibility of wealth transfers from the government to owners of the acquiring firms. We find, consistent with the oversubsidization hypothesis, that shareholders of acquiring firms earn significant positive returns.

ABSTRACT A dynamic equilibrium model is constructed in which agents with access to different information sets participate in the capital market. Agents must use the equilibrium price of capital to make optimal forecasts of the return to holding capital. Examples show that the volume of trade, as well as the price of capital, can be highly correlated with a measure of the information content of prices. This measure of information is the difference between the unconditional entropy of the dividend and the entropy of the dividend conditional on observing the price of capital.

A dynamic equilibrium model is constructed in which agents with access to different information sets participate in the capital market. Agents must use the equilibrium price of capital to make optimal forecasts of the return to holding capital. Examples show that the volume of trade, as well as the price of capital, can be highly correlated with a measure of the information content of prices. The measure of information is the difference between the unconditional entropy of the dividend and the entropy of the dividend conditional on observing the price of capital.

This paper considers a new class of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent (HAC) covariance matrix estimators. The estimators considered are prewhitened kernel estimators with vector autoregressions employed in the prewhitening stage. The paper establishes consistency, rate of convergence, and asymptotic truncated mean squared error (MSE) results for the estimators when a fixed or automatic bandwidth procedure is employed. Conditions are obtained under which prewhitening improves asymptotic truncated MSE. Monte Carlo results show that prewhitening is very effective in reducing bias, improving confidence interval coverage probabilities, and rescuing over-rejection of t-statistics constructed using kernel-HAC estimators. On the other hand, prewhitening is found to inflate variance and MSE of the kernel estimators. Since confidence interval coverage probabilities and over-rejection of t-statistics are usually of primary concern, prewhitened kernel estimators provide a significant improvement over the standard non-prewhitened kernel estimators.

In this paper, a new estimator is proposed for discrete choice models with choice-based sampling. The estimator is efficient and can incorporate information on the marginal choice probabilities in a straightforward manner and for that case leads to a procedure that is computationally and intuitively more appealing than the estimators that have been proposed before. The idea is to start with a flexible parametrization of the distribution of the explanatory variables and then rewrite the estimator to remove dependence on these parametric assumptions. Copyright 1992 by The Econometric Society.

Abstract Presents a study to determine whether real audit fees decreased between 1977 and 1981. Behavior of audit fees during a period of apparent increasing competition in the market for independent audit services; Method of study; Claims of increasing fee competition in the market for independent audit services.

This paper examines daily excess bond returns associated with announcements of additions to Standard and Poor's Credit Watch List, and to rating changes by Moody's and Standard and Poor's. Reliably nonzero average excess bond returns are observed for additions to Standard and Poor's Credit Watch List when an expectations model is used to classify additions as either expected or unexpected. Bond price effects are also observed for actual downgrade and upgrade announcements by rating agencies. Excluding announcements with concurrent disclosures weakens the results for downgrades, but not upgrades. The stock price effects of rating agency announcements are also examined and contrasted with the bond price effects.