The impact of corporate taxes on the leverage decision in a competitive market was analyzed in [8[, [9], and the incorporation of personal taxes into the problem structure was achieved in [4], [1] and [10]. In a more recent paper, Miller [6] suggested that the impacts of both corporate and personal taxation could be studied by simultaneously analyzing the supply of and demand for securities in an overall equilibrium framework. DeAngelo and Masulis [2], [3] formalized and extended the implications of Miller's model, but found that given the U.S. tax code, an equilibrium in which positive dividends were featured was not possible over and above the relatively small dividend exclusion provision.

Since the beta systematic risk coefficient and the standard deviation are both important statistics in the received capital market theory [22] and the received option theory [1], considerabe effort has been expended on obtaining empirical estimates of these statistics [30]. The ordinary least squares (OLS) technique is typically utilized to estimate beta as the regression coefficient of a simple linear regression. However, the OLS betas for common stocks were found to be disconcertingly unstable over time [5, 6, 13, 15, 25]. But, whether the OLS beta or an adjusted beta were used, the regression statistics could still only explain less than half of the variability of most New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks' returns (more specifically, R2 < .5).

After integrating risky debt instruments into the generalized asset pricing model developed by Sharpe and Lintner, we have demonstrated that the required return-to-equity capital in this model is a linear function of the debt-to-equity ratio with a slope equal to the difference between the unlevered cost of equity and the direct cost of debt. Consequently, we take the average cost of capital to be invariant with respect to leverage. The particular nature of the debt instrument issued by the firm does not affect this result.

Our analysis supporting the net operating income valuation construct is of interest in that it takes into account not only the variance of the probability distribution of equity returns but also the covariance relationships between these returns and all other returns in the system. Further, we need not rely on assumptions of “equivalent return” classes or arbitrage possibilities to arrive at our solution. More important, our conclusion is quite general in that we demonstrate indifference toward finance with any instrument regardless of its inherent risk characteristics.

American options require numerical methods, namely lattice models, to provide accurate price estimates. The computations can become expensive when more than one state variable is involved. Analytical upper bounds can therefore provide a useful guideline for how high American values can reach. In this paper, we derive analytical (closed-form) upper bounds for American option prices under stochastic interest rates, stochastic volatility, and jumps where American option prices are difficult to compute with accuracy. In a stochastic volatility model (Heston (1993) and Scott (1997)) that has two random factors, we demonstrate that the upper bound only takes a very small fraction of the time that the American option needs to compute.

We build a structural two-factor model of default where the stock market index is one of the stochastic factors. We allow the firm to adjust its leverage ratio in response to changes in the business climate for which the past performance of the stock market index acts as a proxy. We assume that the firm's log-leverage ratio follows a mean-reverting process and that the past performance of the stock index negatively affects the firms target leverage ratio. We show that for most credit ratings our model may explain actual yield spreads better than other well-known structural credit risk models. Also, our model shows that the past performance of the stock index returns and the firm's assets beta have a significant impact on credit spreads. Hence, our model can explain why credit spreads may be different within the same credit rating groups and why spreads are lower during economic expansions and higher during recessions.

The retained earnings hypothesis predicts that stock distributions accounted for by reducing retained earnings are a more credible signal of managerial optimism than stock distributions that do not reduce retained earnings. This study examines the costs of false signaling that are a necessary pre-condition for the hypothesis and finds them to be generally very small, calling the validity of the hypothesis into question for most firms. However, prior studies report broad-based market evidence consistent with the hypothesis. To resolve this apparent inconsistency, the study replicates and extends tests of the retained earnings hypothesis contained in three prior studies, and shows that the findings in support of the retained earnings hypothesis can be attributed to specification and measurement choices that bias the results in favor of the hypothesis. The support for the retained earnings hypothesis is weaker when the sources of the bias are removed. However, some support for the hypothesis remains for a limited set of distributing firms.

We provide evidence on the valuation of equity positions by hedge funds. Reported valuations deviate from standard valuations based on closing prices from the Center for Research in Security Prices for roughly 7% of the positions. These equity valuation deviations are positively related to illiquidity and price volatility of the underlying stocks. They respond to past performance and intensify after an advisor starts reporting to a commercial database. Furthermore, advisors with more valuation deviations show a stronger discontinuity in their reported returns around 0, manage a higher fraction of potentially fraudulent funds, report smoother returns, and exhibit an upward spike in their December reported returns.

Jack Clack Francis' paper is a most interesting and provocative one, because it is the first to present empirical evidence questioning the importance of a distribution's skewness parameter in the investor's decision process. In particular, Francis claims his evidence demonstrates that stock market investors do not consider skewness in choosing among alternative investments.

We study 120 rights offerings by closed-end funds from 1988–1998. On average, rights offerings are announced when funds trade at a premium. This premium turns into a discount over the course of the offering. The premium decline is more severe when increases in the investment advisor's compensation are larger and when the fund uses affiliated brokerdealers to solicit subscriptions to the offer. A clinical analysis shows that rights offerings allow investment advisors to sidestep fee rebates and increase pecuniary benefits to affiliated entities. Overall, our results suggest the presence of significant conflicts of interest in rights offerings by closed-end funds.

We provide evidence that managerial incentives to manipulate real activities can influence the effectiveness of fiscal policy. Increases in federal spending lead government-dependent firms to expand research and development (R&D) investment whereas industry-peer firms contract. The net result is a reduction in industry-level R&D investment. We find evidence of a novel mechanism for the crowding out of peer-firm investment: peer-firm managers respond to falling relative performance by cutting R&D to manage current earnings upward. We show that these differential responses manifest in firm value. These findings are robust to endogeneity and selection concerns as well as a battery of alternative explanations.

We develop a measure (based on the relative slopes of the demand and supply schedules) quantifying the asymmetric presence of liquidity traders in the market: a steeper slope of the demand (supply) schedule indicates a concentration of liquidity traders on the demand (supply) side. Using the opening session of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, we demonstrate the predictive power of our measure. Consistent with theory, we find that the concentration of liquidity traders on the demand (supply) side is negatively (positively) correlated with future returns. We find that liquidity traders are likely to arrive at the market together (commonality).

This paper provides closed form solutions for futures and European futures options on pure discount bonds under the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (normal) process. A significant difference between Black's model (1976) and the model in this paper for futures options is discussed.

Economic analysts following the mean-variance maxim have concentrated upon the problem of portfolios as financial assets with little or no effort being directed to the inclusion of productive liabilities. Accordingly, the usual portfolio analysis assumes the absolute level of funds available for investment as fixed and concerns itself only with the distribution of that given amount over candidate opportunities. In a wide variety of applications, neither part of this restriction is either essential or desirable. The management of insurance companies is a particularly important area that could benefit from an extension of portfolio techniques to accommodate liabilities as a variable factor. Subsequently, alternative levels of funding, through both underwriting and long-term debt, could be investigated for their attendant expected return and risk contributions to the corporation's overall financial posture.

Preference orderings of uncertain prospects have progressed from the two-moment EV model first developed by Markowitz [1952] to the more general efficiency analysis that is based on the entire probability function. This general efficiency approach, referred to as the Stochastic Dominance (SD) approach, does not depend on specific assumptions about the investor's utility function and has been shown to be theoretically superior to the “moment methods” [1].

In recent issues of the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, several papers ([7], [1], [4], and [6]) have presented simple sufficient conditions for detecting whether a given pattern of cash flows over time has a unique, simple, nonnegative internal rate of return. One such condition, developed independently by Bernhard [4] and deFaro [6], is easily shown to be the most general of the lot, i.e., to contain the others as special cases. See, e.g., deFaro[6].

This paper assesses the importance of the role of prices as aggregators of private information in the S&P 500 future market. We estimate primitive parameters of the Hellwig (1980) noisy rational expectations model, when both prices and terminal values are observable. The variance-covariance parameters governing futuers prices and terminal values can be inverted to obtain estimate of the primitive parmeters, including the precision of private infromation and the variance of liquidity-motivated trades. We also estimate coefficients in the linear price conjecture, weights that agents place on different sources of information, and the informativeness of prices. We find that the variance of the error term in agents' private signals is several orders of magnitude larger than the variance of liquidity-motivated trades. But, in a large market, prices are still so informative that the market as a whole appears to weight them more than prior beliefs.

Many futures contracts contain a delivery option, which allows the short position a choice to deliver one of several varieties of a commodity. Several authors have argued that delivery options can have considerable value. For a forward contract with a delivery option, this paper shows that a continuously adjusted hedge will drive the value of the delivery option towards zero, assuming perfect and frictionless markets.

This paper examines preferencing arrangements and tacit collusion in laboratory asset markets. In the experiments, dealers may internalize by matching the best quote or by passing orders to the dealer posting the best quote. Although some markets were highly competitive, several markets reached a collusive equilibrium with wide spreads and near complete internalization of order flow. The paper further examines the role of market transparency and passed order flow on quote-setting behavior and suggests that these affect the mechanism leading to tacitly collusive equilibria.

”Poor people cause poor housing.” This statement is the basis for one of the major policy proposals to eradicate poor housing and neighborhoods that plague some of our urban areas. If the motto is correct, then poor housing and poor neighborhoods can be eliminated by providing direct support for the demand for housing by low-income households. The role of government, under such a policy, is to funnel its resources to households in the form of demand subsidies. Examples of such demand-side programs are housing allowances and the Section 8 existing housing program.

In a recent issue of this journal Barnea [1] presented an empirical study of the impact of a specialist (market-maker) on the variability of the price of a stock. He concludes with others that “the chief cost of dealing with a market maker is the difference between the theoretical but unobservable equilibrium price and the transaction price, rather than the bid-ask spread.” This paper presents a rigorous dynamic model in which the specialist, who is uncertain about the future arrival of tenders, determines transaction prices periodically over the trading day. The structure of the model permits a direct comparison of the specialist's prices to the “equilibrium price,” to be defined below, and also to what prices would be in the absence of a specialist.