Abstract Examines the question of whether direct solicitation rules affect auditors' decisions regarding the type of audit report to issue. Effect on audit quality by the removal of bans on direct uninvited solicitation; Associations between information dissemination, client-author alignment and auditor independence.

[Many states removed their bans on direct univited solicitation during the 1980s, while others retained their restrictions. This period of contrast provides an opportunity to examine and provide insight into associations that exist among information dissemination, client-auditor alignment, and auditor independence. Although concerns have been voiced that recent changes in competitive conditions in the audit market are detrimental to audit quality, we present arguments and evidence to the contrary. Results of a logistic regression analysis suggest that, ceteris paribus, auditors in the market allowing solicitation are more likely than those in the market banning solicitation to issue a nonstandard report.]

The relation between theorized components of the bid-ask spread and trade size for a sample of NYSE firms is examined. We find that the adverse selection component increases uniformly with trade size. Conversely, order processing costs decrease with increases in trade size for all but the largest trades. We find that order persistence decreases with trade size. The adverse selection component is highest at the beginning of the day and lowest at the end of the day for all but the largest trades. Trades of NYSE firms executed on regional exchanges or NASDAQ contain a large order processing cost component but no significant adverse information effect.

In this article, we suggest an efficient method of approximating a general, multivariate log-normal distribution by a multivariate binomial process. There are two important features of such multivariate distributions. First, the state variables may have volatilities that change over time. Second, the two or more relevant state variables involved may covary with each other in a specified manner, with a time-varying covariance structure. We discuss the asymptotic properties of the resulting processes and show how the methodology can be used to value a complex, multiple exercisable option whose payoff depends on the prices of two assets. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.

The authors examine the performance of common stock recommendations made by prominent money managers at Barron's Annual Roundtable from 1968 to 1991. To avoid survivorship bias, they examine the performance of recommendations by all the participants. The buy recommendations earn significant abnormal returns of 1.91 percent from the recommendation day to the publication day, a period of about fourteen days. However, the abnormal returns are essentially zero for one to three year postpublication day holding periods. Thus, an individual investing according to the Roundtable recommendations published in in Barron's would not benefit from the advice.