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Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 43 No. 2-3 2007

Delisting returns and their effect on accounting-based market anomalies

William H. Beaver1; Maureen F. McNichols1; R. Arlen Price2

1 Stanford University · 2 Rice University

Abstract

We show that tests of market efficiency are sensitive to the inclusion of delisting firm-years. When included, trading strategy returns based on anomaly variables can increase (for strategies based on earnings, cash flows and the book-to-market ratio) or decrease (for a strategy based on accruals). This is due to the disproportionate number of delisting firm-years in the lowest decile of these variables. Delisting firm-years are most often excluded because the researcher does not correctly incorporate delisting returns, because delisting return data are missing or because other research design choices implicitly exclude them.

DOI
10.1016/j.jacceco.2006.12.002
Volume
43
Issue
2-3
Pages
341-368
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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