The behavior of time-weighted bid-ask spreads over the trading day are examined. The plot of minute-by-minute spreads versus time of day has a crude reverse J-shaped pattern. Schwartz identifies four determinants of spreads: activity, risk, information, and competition. Using a linear regression model, a significant relationship between these same factors and intraday spreads is demonstrated, but dummy variables for time of day have a reverse J-shape. For given values of the activity, risk, information, and competition measures, spreads are higher at the beginning and end of the day relative to the interior period.

The crumbling of the Berlin Wall in Germany in 1989, the dismantling of Communist Party control of Central and Eastern European governments in 1990, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 have created the opportunity for substantive reductions in military expenditures in the United States and Europe. This paper addresses conceptually and empirically some of the issues surrounding the potential structural impacts of disarmament upon an open economy's allocation of capital and labor between tradable and nontradable goods, upon the relative price of tradables and nontradables, and upon the nation's price level relative to a world average. Theoretically, the effects of military spending reductions on these variables is ambiguous: the effects depend upon the relative factor intensities in production of civilian versus military goods and those of civilian tradable versus nontradable goods, as well as upon the relative importance in utility of civilian tradable versus nontradable goods. Empirically, the model suggests that the effects of disarmament on the relative demand for and relative supply of nontradables to tradables are economically and statistically significant. However, because military spending reductions will tend to increase the relative supply only slightly more than the relative demand, their relative price (i.e., the real exchange rate) is predicted to decline by only a small amount. Consequently, lower military expenditures are predicted to result in a small real depreciation of a country's currency and, thus, only a minor fall in the national price level relative to the world average.

This study investigates the extent to which information inferred by investors from initial announcements of corporate security offerings affects share prices in the capital markets. The empirical tests measure the response in the common stock prices of both firms announcing a security offering and non-announcing firms operating in the same industry. Small but significantly negative abnormal returns are shown by industry shares upon initial announcements of common stock, convertible debt, and straight debt public offerings. Such an industry response indicates that share prices incorporate an inside assessment of factors relevant to the valuation of an industry subset of firms.

This study investigates the extent to which information inferred by investors from initial announcements of corporate security offerings affects share prices in the capital markets. The empirical tests measure the response in the common stock prices of both firms announcing a security offering and non‐announcing firms operating in the same industry. Small but significantly negative abnormal returns are shown by industry shares upon initial announcements of common stock, convertible debt, and straight debt public offerings. Such an industry response indicates that share prices incorporate an inside assessment of factors relevant to the valuation of an industry subset of firms.

Glenn W. Harrison, H. D. Vinod, The Sensitivity Analysis of Applied General Equilibrium Models: Completely Randomized Factorial Sampling Designs, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 74, No. 2 (May, 1992), pp. 357-362

This study provides evidence that market segmentation affects the strength of the association between financial disclosure and net interest cost for new issues of municipal bonds. Previous studies (see, e.g., Amershi and Ramamurtie 1990; Cook 1982; Hendershott and Kidwell 1978; Kidwell et al. 1983) show that the geographic segmentation of primary markets for municipal bonds along regional and national lines is characterized by different sources and costs of information. Because little information is available from alternative sources for the less marketable bonds of smaller issuers which use regional markets, financial reporting variables are hypothesized to be associated more strongly with interest costs for these issues than for those of larger municipalities, whose bonds are typically issued in the national bond market. Cook (1982) argues that the costs of obtaining information about small issuers from alternative sources are relatively high. For these issuers, who also do not issue bonds frequently, regional underwriters may be the only informational intermediaries (other than rating agencies if the bonds are rated) between the issuers and investors (Kidwell et al. 1983). Thus, financial and other entity-specific information contained in the offering statement are expected to be weighted more heavily in pricing these bonds than for bonds of larger issuers. Although this differential-information hypothesis is analogous to Atiase's (1985) argument regarding differential predisclosure of information, our study assumes differential availability of information across market segments, and size alone is not likely to be an adequate proxy for segmentation. Our main analysis uses the nature of the underwriting syndicate, whether it is managed by a national or regional underwriter, to proxy for the relevant market segment. Previous studies of municipal accounting (see, e.g., Ingram and Cope- land 1982; Wallace 1981; Wilson and Howard 1984) have provided evidence of an association between bond measures and accounting and auditing variables. However, the results were mixed and inconsistent, which may be attributable to differences in the entities examined (cities, counties, and school districts), the time periods examined, or definitions of variables. Also, differences in the mix of bonds issued in each segment may have contributed to the inconsistent results. By examining the relationship between accounting and auditing variables and bond interest costs separately for each segment of the primary bond market, our study provides useful evidence on the potential effect of different information environments on this relationship. Regression results based on a sample of 119 new municipal bond issues, partitioned on a measure of segmentation (regional vs. national underwriter), are consistent, with the hypothesis that the association between the quality and quantity of financial disclosure and interest costs is stronger for municipalities that issue bonds in local or regional markets than for those that issue bonds in the national market. Our results suggest that future research in this area should consider the potential effects of market segmentation when testing the association between accounting or auditing variables and bond interest costs.