There is debate in the literature focuses on whether open market repurchases can be taken as a signal of stock undervaluation. This research argues that takeover pressures before a repurchase announcement can be a credible signal of undervaluation. The empirical results indicate that repurchasing firms with a higher probability of takeover experience greater announcement effects, improvements in operating performance and long-run abnormal return, positive forecast revisions by financial analysts, and enhanced agreement between management and shareholders. These findings suggest that takeover probability and open-market share repurchases appear to constitute a double-signal for conveying stock undervaluation to the market.

[The empirical evidence on the cross-sectional relation between idiosyncratic risk and expected stock returns is mixed. We demonstrate that the omission of the previous month's stock returns can lead to a negatively biased estimate of the relation. The magnitude of the omitted variable bias depends on the approach to estimating the conditional idiosyncratic volatility. Although a negative relation exists when the estimate is based on daily returns, it disappears after return reversals are controlled for. Return reversals can explain both the negative relation between value-weighted portfolio returns and idiosyncratic volatility and the insignificant relation between equal-weighted portfolio returns and idiosyncratic volatility. In contrast, there is a significantly positive relation between the conditional idiosyncratic volatility estimated from monthly data and expected returns. This relation remains robust after controlling for return reversals.]

We find that daily air pollution levels have a significant effect on the decision to purchase or cancel health insurance in a manner inconsistent with rational choice theory. A one standard deviation increase in daily air pollution leads to a 7.2% increase in the number of insurance contracts sold that day. Conditional on purchase, a one standard deviation decrease in air pollution during the cooling-off (i.e. cost-free cancellation) period relative to the order-date level increases the return probability by 4.0%. We explore a range of potential mechanism and find the most support for projection bias and salience.

Using data on China's split-share structure reform that floats non-tradable shares, we find that Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFIIs) have greater influence over the controlling state shareholders than local mutual funds. QFIIs are less prone to political pressure and are more likely to participate in arm's-length negotiation and monitoring in state-controlled companies. The presence of QFII ownership shortens the duration of the reform and increases the compensation to minority tradable shareholders. Unlike local mutual funds, the positive relationship between state ownership and the compensation to tradable shareholders increases with the presence of QFII ownership. Furthermore, QFIIs increase the likelihood of revision in reform proposals among state-controlled companies. Domestic mutual funds seem to make earnest negotiations in non-state-controlled companies in the absence of political pressure. Evidence suggests that involving foreign institutional investors in corporate governance practices can significantly reduce expropriation by controlling shareholders in emerging markets.

By examining the ethnic identity of authors in over 2.5 million scientific papers written by US-based authors from 1985 to 2008, we find that persons of similar ethnicity coauthor together more frequently than predicted by their proportion among authors. The greater homophily is associated with publication in lower-impact journals and with fewer citations. Meanwhile, papers with authors in more locations and with longer reference lists get published in higher-impact journals and receive more citations. These findings suggest that diversity in inputs by author ethnicity, location, and references leads to greater contributions to science as measured by impact factors and citations.

This study considers the experience of china's one-child policy to examine how fertility restrictions affect economic and social outcomes over a lifetime. Using variations in these penalties across provinces and over time, we find that exposure to stricter fertility restrictions when young leads to higher education levels, more white-collar jobs, delayed marriage, and lower fertility rates. Further consequences include lower rates of residing with the elderly and higher household income, consumption, and savings. Finally, exposure to stricter fertility restrictions in early life increases female empowerment. Overall, fertility restrictions imposed when people are young have powerful effects throughout their life cycle.

We examine how the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) affects pre-repurchase earnings management and its association with post-repurchase firm performance. Unlike prior pre-SOX studies, our post-SOX results indicate that open-market repurchasers do not engage in pre-buyback downward accrual-based earnings management. Audit committee independence, reforms in corporate governance structures, and changes in executives’ equity holdings prompted by SOX may explain the findings. Post-SOX, the significant negative association between pre-repurchase abnormal accruals and post-repurchase performance disappears, the market reaction to repurchase announcements becomes significantly less favorable, and there is no evidence of any shift away from accrual-based to real earnings management.

We study a transitional economy where state-controlled banks make loan decisions based on noisy inside information on prospective borrowers, and may lend to avert unemployment and social instability. In China, poor financial performance and high managerial expenses increase the likelihood of obtaining a bank loan, and bank loan approval predicts poor subsequent borrower performance. Negative event study responses occur at bank loan announcements, particularly for borrowers measuring poorly on quality and creditworthiness, or for lenders or borrowers involved in litigation regarding loans. Our results highlight dilemmas in a state-led financial system and the local stock market’s sophistication in interpreting news.

To the extent that investors diversify internationally, large-cap stocks receive the dominant share of fund allocation. Increasingly, however, returns to large-cap stocks or stock market indices tend to comove, mitigating the benefits from international diversification. In contrast, stocks of locally oriented, small companies do not exhibit the same tendency. In this paper, we assess the potential of small-cap stocks as a vehicle for international portfolio diversification during the period 1980–1999. We show that the extra gains from the augmented diversification with small-cap funds are statistically significant for both in-sample and out-of-sample periods and remain robust to the consideration of market frictions.

We investigate the changes in risk sensitivities of interest rates following a shift in Prosper.com's pricing mechanism from auctions to posted prices. We find that the shift leads to reduced sensitivities of loan pricing to credit risk. Furthermore, this change results in higher profits for the platform while investors receive less compensation for the credit risk they undertake. Additionally, borrowers encounter less credit rationing. Analyses of repeat borrowers under both pricing regimes and tests with data under Prosper's upgraded posted prices confirm these findings. We argue that less risk-based pricing results from the incentives of the lending platform.