The empirical analysis examines the salary and publication records of 311 finance professors at public research universities to calculate the worth of a top finance journal article. Within rank, salary regressions provide measures of the direct returns of a journal publication, while probit models consider the indirect returns that result from promotion. Ultimately, the analysis uses a reduced form salary equation to measure both the direct and indirect effects of publishing a journal article. Depending on professorial rank, the present value of the first top finance journal article is between extbackslash19,493 and extbackslash33,754, with the additional result of large returns to subsequent publications.

The empirical analysis examines the salary and publication records of 311 finance professors at public research universities to calculate the worth of a top finance journal article. Within rank, salary regressions provide measures of the direct returns of a journal publication, while probit models consider the indirect returns that result from promotion. Ultimately, the analysis uses a reduced form salary equation to measure both the direct and indirect effects of publishing a journal article. Depending on professorial rank, the present value of the first top finance journal article is between $19,493 and $33,754, with the additional result of large returns to subsequent publications.

The volatility of its share price reflects the volatility of the market value of a bank's assets. We present data for the volatilities of individual banks' shares that are implied by the prices of options on the banks' shares. We present evidence that implied volatilities (IV's) better forecast actual, future volatilities of share prices than historical volatilities do. Banks' IV's are correlated with marketwide volatility, with the levels of their own share prices, with their own subordinated debt yield spreads, and with other banks' IV's. Bank capital reduces the response of IV's to market volatility. IV's are likely to add information about bank risk that is timely, cheap, objective, and useful.

Using data that contain bid and ask quotes for both options and stocks, the analysis investigates the constant volatility assumption of the Black-Scholes model. The analysis adjusts for bid-ask spreads and finds evidence that is inconsistent with the constant volatility assumption. Instead, the results reveal a strong negative correlation between volatility and stock price, and they suggest that using a nonconstant volatility model such as the CEV model would be more appropriate to price long-term options. Finally, transaction costs associated with the dynamic hedge tend to increase with an option's maturity, but decrease as a percentage of the option's price.