Agency theory implies that asset ownership and decision authority are complements. Using 1998 data from Texas commercial banks, we test whether the likelihood of local ownership of bank offices increases with the importance of granting local managers greater decision authority (for example, due to location or customer base). Our empirical evidence is consistent with this hypothesis. It suggests that complementarities between strategy and organizational structure can foster differentiation among firms in terms of location, customers, and products. It also supports the growing view that small locally-owned banks have a comparative advantage over large banks within specific environments.

This paper provides new evidence of how macroeconomic conditions affect capital structure choice. We model firms’ target capital structures as a function of macroeconomic conditions and firm-specific variables. We split our sample based on a measure of financial constraints. Target leverage is counter-cyclical for the relatively unconstrained sample, but pro-cyclical for the relatively constrained sample. Macroeconomic conditions are significant for issue choice for unconstrained firms but less so for constrained firms. Our results support the hypothesis that unconstrained firms time their issue choice to coincide with periods of favorable macroeconomic conditions, while constrained firms do not.

We develop a dynamic model of price competition in broker and dealer markets. With no payment for order flow, a zero-profit equilibrium exists. With payment for order flow, spreads widen to more than compensate for this payment; hence, there is no equilibrium in which market makers earn zero profits. While brokerage commissions for market orders can fall, the total transactions cost to submitting a market order remains positive. Consumer and social welfare are both lower in any equilibrium with payment for order flow; payment for order flow redistributes payoffs from traders who demand liquidity to those who supply it.

We investigate whether corporate executives’ stock repurchase decisions are affected by their incentives to manage diluted earning per share (EPS). We find that executives increase the level of their firms’ stock repurchases when: (1) the dilutive effect of outstanding employee stock options (ESOs) on diluted EPS increases, and (2) earnings are below the level required to achieve the desired rate of EPS growth. We also find that executives’ repurchase decisions are not associated with actual ESO exercises, suggesting that they are driven by incentives to manage diluted but not basic EPS, and strengthening our earnings management interpretation.

In a sample of 2,794 initial public offerings (IPOs), we test three potential explanations for the existence of IPO lockups: lockups serve as (i) a signal of firm quality, (ii) a commitment device to alleviate moral hazard problems, or (iii) a mechanism for underwriters to extract additional compensation from the issuing firm. Our results support the commitment hypothesis. Insiders of firms that are associated with greater potential for moral hazard lockup their shares for a longer period of time. Insiders of firms that have experienced larger excess returns, are backed by venture capitalists, or go public with high-quality underwriters are more likely to be released from the lockup restrictions.

Although institutional investors have a preference for large capitalization stocks, over time they have shifted their preferences toward smaller, riskier securities. These changes in aggregate preferences have arisen primarily from changes in the preferences of each class of institution, rather than changes in the importance of different classes. Evidence also suggests that recent growth in institutional investment combined with this shift in preferences helps explain why markets in general, and smaller stocks in particular, have exhibited greater firm-specific risk and liquidity in recent years. Additional analyses suggest that institutional investors moved toward smaller securities because such securities offer "greener pastures."

Abstract In this paper, we examine the relative efficiency of audit production by one of the then Big 6 public accounting firms for a sample of 247 geographically dispersed audits of U.S. companies performed in 1989. To test the relative efficiency of audit production, we use both stochastic frontier estimation (SFE) and data envelopment analysis (DEA). A feature of our research is that we also test whether any apparent inefficiencies in production, identified using SFE and DEA, are correlated with audit pricing. That is, do apparent inefficiencies cause the public accounting firm to reduce its unit price (billing rate) per hour of labor utilized on an engagement? With respect to results, we do not find any evidence of relative (within‐sample) inefficiencies in the use of partner, manager, senior, or staff labor hours using SFE. This suggests that the SFE model may not be sufficiently powerful to detect inefficiencies, even with our reasonably large sample size. However, we do find apparent inefficiencies using the DEA model. Audits range from about 74 percent to 100 percent relative efficiency in production, while the average audit is produced at about an 88 percent efficiency level, relative to the most efficient audits in the sample. Moreover, the inefficiencies identified using DEA are correlated with the firm's realization rate. That is, average billing rates per hour fall as the amount of inefficiency increases. Our results suggest that there are moderate inefficiencies in the production of many of the subject public accounting firm's audits, and that such inefficiencies are economically costly to the firm.

This study examines individual behavior in two well-functioning marketplaces to investigate whether market experience eliminates the endowment effect. Field evidence from both markets suggests that individual behavior converges to the neoclassical prediction as market experience increases. In an experimental test of whether these observations are due to treatment (market experience) or selection (e.g., static preferences), I find that market experience plays a significant role in eliminating the endowment effect. I also find that these results are robust to institutional change and extend beyond the two marketplaces studied. Overall, this study provides strong evidence that market experience eliminates an important market anomaly.

In this paper we examine the role of social security in an economy populated by overlapping generations of individuals with time-inconsistent preferences who face mortality risk, individual income risk, and borrowing constraints. We find that unfunded social security lowers the capital stock, output, and consumption for consumers with time-consistent or time-inconsistent preferences. However, it may raise or lower welfare depending on the strength of time inconsistency.

The Paris Bourse (currently Euronext Paris) refined its trading system to include electronic call auctions at market closings in 1996 for its less-liquid Continuous B stocks and in 1998 for its more actively traded Continuous A stocks. This paper analyzes the effects of the innovation on market quality. Our empirical analysis of price behavior for two samples of firms (50 B stocks and 50 A stocks) for two different calendar dates (1996 and 1998) indicates that introduction of the closing calls has lowered execution costs for individual participants and sharpened price discovery for the broad market. We further observe that market quality is improved at market openings, albeit to a lesser extent. We suggest that a positive spillover effect explains the closing call's more pervasive impact.