target zones and interest rate variability abstract for narrow exchange rate bands and for reasonable parameter values the interest rate differential s asymptotic unconditional variability is increasing in the width of the exchange rate band whereas for wide exchange rate bands it is slowly decreasing in the exchange rate band the interest rate differential s instantaneous conditional variability is decreasing in the width of the exchange rate band a narrow target zone differs from a completely fixed exchange rate regime in that the interest rate differential s instantaneous standard deviation is high and even increases when the zone narrows

learning by doing and ben porath life cycle predictions and policy implications abstract many government policies affect incentives to acquire human capital two workhorse models dominate the literature analyzing these policies learning by doing lbd and ben porath bp this paper makes two novel findings related to these models first lbd and bp generate different predictions for life cycle earnings growth bp predicts that the heterogeneity in earnings growth rates across workers should disappear over the life cycle because the workers stop investing as they age the lbd model cannot replicate this feature because workers accumulate human capital automatically throughout the life cycle second the same model features that generate different life cycle predictions between bp and lbd also generate different implications for policies that affect the payoff to human capital accumulation to illustrate this quantitatively i show that increasing marginal labor tax rates for top earners depresses human capital accumulation more under bp as a result the laffer curve for top marginal income tax rates is flatter and peaks 10 percentage points lower with bp versus lbd

variable probability of realignment in a target zone the target zone model presented here encompasses a realignment probability that increases as the fundamental deviates from the center of the zone the analysis is carried out for cases where the fundamental follows either a brownian motion or an ornstein uhlenbeck process the simplest version of the model yields tractable results which prove to be robust when its most restrictive assumption is relaxed the solution obtained is dubbed the steeper s in accordance with its most relevant feature copyright 1994 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

intertemporal labor supply and human capital accumulation we solve and estimate a dynamic model that allows agents to optimally choose their labor hours and consumption and that allows for both human capital accumulation and savings estimation results and simulation exercises indicate that the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is much higher than the conventional estimates and the downward bias comes from the omission of the human capital accumulation effect the human capital accumulation effect renders the life cycle path of the shadow wage relatively flat even though wages increase with age hence a rather flat life cycle labor supply path can be reconciled with a high intertemporal elasticity of substitution

tests for price effects of new issues of seasoned securities do new issues of seasoned securities cause significant price movements in the neighborhood of the issue day this paper presents an empirical comparison of three competing hypotheses the sec view that a new issue causes a permanent price decline the underwriter view that there is only a temporary price decline during the distribution period and the efficient market hypothesis emh that implies the absence of any price effects several empirical tests of the competing hypotheses using data on new issues of utility stocks traded on the nyse reject the sec and underwriter views in favor of the emh

discounting and underpricing in seasoned equity offers abstract expected discounting in seasoned equity offers is a cost of uncertainty about firm value marketing new shares and acquiring information that raises the offer price stockholders incorporate predictable discounting in stock prices when equity offers are first announced the surprise component of discounting reflecting the lead bank s final adjustment to the offer price releases information that often causes economically large price swings on the offer day disparities between the issuer s closing price and the price suggested in the lead bank s final order book are a primary source of information the discount surprise appears to be used by lead banks to update capital suppliers with that eleventh hour information before they commit their funds

demand curves for stocks do slope down new evidence from an index weights adjustment weights in the toronto stock exchange 300 index are determined by the market values of the included stocks public floats in november 1996 the exchange implemented a previously announced revision of its definition of the public float this revision which increased the floats and the index weights of 31 stocks conveyed no information and had no effect on the legal duties of shareholders affected stocks experienced statistically significant excess returns of 2 3 percent during the event week and no price reversal occurred as trading volume returned to normal levels these findings support downward sloping demand curves for stocks an obvious event with which to examine the slope of demand curves for stocks is one that changes supply in the absence of new information a shift in supply should not affect stock prices if demand curves for stocks are flat scholes 1972 using a sample of secondary equity distributions asks whether stocks are unique works of art or merely abstract claims to residual cash flows with many close substitutes as is assumed in much of finance theory scholes finds that the negative price impact of secondary offerings depends on the seller s identity implying the revelation of unfavorable informationand rules out a pure supply effect mikkelson and partch 1985 also using a sample of registered and unregistered secondary offerings find weak evidence of downward sloping demand curves but are unable to cleanly distinguish this explanation from the alternative explanation based on unfavorable information a different class of events additions to widely followed stock market indexes ostensibly provides a setting where information effects should not be present shleifer 1986 documents a permanent price increase for stocks

bank monitoring and the pricing of corporate public debt1 we examine whether the existence of a bank firm relationship lowers the cost of public debt financing using a sample of first public straight debt o ers we test the crossmonitoring e ect of bank debt and diamond s 1991 journal of political economy 99 689 721 reputation building argument we find that the existence of bank debt lowers the at issue yield spreads for first public straight bond o ers by about 68 basis points on average consistent with diamond s reputation building argument we document that firm reputation is negatively related to the at issue yield spread for initial public debt o ers 1999 elsevier science s a all rights reserved

do banks provide financial slack we study the decision to choose bank debt rather than public securities in a firm s marginal financing choice using a sample of 500 firms over the 1980 to 1993 time period we find that firms are relatively more likely to choose bank loans when variables that measure asymmetric information problems are elevated the sensitivity of the likelihood of choosing bank debt to information problems is greater for firms with no public debt outstanding these results are consistent with the hypothesis that banks help alleviate asymmetric information problems and that firms weigh these information benefits against a wide range of contracting costs when choosing bank financing why do some firms borrow from public sources while others rely exclusively on private lenders the answer to this question is not well understood existing theories suggest that a firm must consider the tradeoff between the benefits and costs of bank debt financing relative to other potential financing choices the potential benefits of bank financing include low moral hazard and adverse selection costs and ease of renegotiation in financial distress 1 the potential costs of bank financing include monitoring costs suboptimal liquidation outcomes and distortions induced by information monopolies 2 the goal of this paper is to identify whether adverse selection problems influence a firm s choice between new bank debt public debt or common stock in particular we are interested in assessing the empirical validity of the hypothesis that banks have the ability to accurately price a firm s claims thus inducing a preference for firms that are undervalued by the market to

a theory of trading volume a theory of trading volume is developed based on assumptions that market agents frequently revise their demand prices and randomly encounter potential trading partners the model describes two distinct ways informational events affect trading volume one is consistent with conjectures made by empirical researchers that investor disagreement leads to increased trading but the observation of abnormal trading volume does not necessarily imply disagreement and volume can increase even if investors interpret the information identically if they also have had divergent prior expectations simulation tests support the model and are used to contrast the random pairing environment with costless market clearing volume is lower in the costly market and volume increases caused by an informational event persist after the event period this is consistent with existing empirical evidence and suggests that markets do not immediately clear all orders or that investors have demands to recontract

does competition from new equity mitigate bank rent extraction insights from japanese data previous research shows that bank information production mitigates asymmetric information problems however this literature has ignored the concern that firms with better growth prospects are more vulnerable to bank rent extraction this paper points out that funding competition from new equity as an effective natural mechanism solves this important concern using japanese data from 1983 to 1997 we show that the relationship between loan to debt ratio and growth while starting significantly negative consistent with holdup theory turns significantly positive towards the high end of the growth spectrum we confirm that high growth firms raise more new equity than do low growth firms and use more equity relative to bonds in external finance this is consistent with a generalized myers majluf framework these results suggest that for high growth firms when competition from public debt lessens due to increased growth based valuations competition from new equity steps in to restrain bank rent extraction

evolution of gender differences in post secondary human capital investments college majors although women in the united states now complete more college degrees than men the distribution of college majors among college graduates remains unequal with women about two thirds as likely as men to major in business or science we develop and estimate a dynamic overlapping generations model of human capital investments and labor supply we allow for specific college major choices instead of aggregating these choices to the education level results show that changes in skill prices higher schooling costs and gender specific changes in home value were each important to the long term trends abstract from author

can the trade off theory explain debt structure we examine the optimal mixture and priority structure of bank and market debt using a tradeoff model where banks have the unique ability to renegotiate outside formal bankruptcy flexible bank debt offers a superior tradeoff between tax shields and bankruptcy costs ease of renegotiation limits bank debt capacity however optimal debt structure hinges upon which party has bargaining power in private workouts weak firms have high bank debt capacity and utilize bank debt exclusively strong firms lever up to their lower bank debt capacity augment with market debt and place the bank senior therefore the tradeoff theory offers an explanation for i why young small firms use bank debt exclusively ii why large mature firms employ mixed debt financing and iii why bank debt is senior the tradeoff theory also generates predictions consistent with international evidence in countries where the bankruptcy regime entails soft tough enforcement of contractual priority bank debt capacity is low high implying greater less reliance on market debt

the market reaction to international cross listings evidence from depositary receipts abstract this paper examines the stock price impact of international dual listings the sample consists of 181 firms from 35 countries that instituted their first depositary receipt program over the period 1985 1995 the market reaction to a depositary receipt program is larger in magnitude and more pervasive than previously reported the stock price reaction is related to choice of exchange geographical location i e emerging or developed markets and avenues for raising equity capital i e public versus private offerings

target zones and exchange rate dynamics this paper develops a simple model of exchange rate behavior under a target zone regime it shows that the expectation that monetary policy will be adjusted to limit exchange rate variation affects exchange rate behavior even when the exchange rate lies inside the zone and is thus not being defended actively somewhat surprisingly the analysis of target zones turns out to have a strong formal similarity to problems in option pricing and investment under uncertainty

issuing costs to existing shareholders in competitive and negotiated underwritten public utility equity offerings abstract this paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of whether there is any difference in the cost incurred by public utilities if they issue new equity through a negotiated or competitive underwriting we conclude that the expected cost of a competitive offer is less than the expected cost of a negotiated offer but that the variance of the cost is substantially greater with a competitive offer these results are interesting because most public utilities use negotiated underwriting unless forced by regulation to use competitive offers this paper is also an addition to the growing agency theory literature

raiders or saviors the evidence on six controversial investors abstract carl icahn irwin jacobs carl lindner david murdock victor posner and the late charles bluhdorn are usually portrayed as corporate raiders the evidence here however shows that between 1977 and 1982 when it was first announced that they had purchased stock in a given firm stock prices on average increased significantly the investors activities in target firms for the two years following the initial stock purchase are likewise inconsistent with raiding we discuss two hypotheses that are consistent with the evidence first these investors improve the management of target firms second they are systematically able to identify under priced stocks

why exchange rate bands monetary independence in spite of fixed exchange rates abstract the paper argues that the reason real world fixed exchange rate regimes usually have finite bands instead of completely fixed exchange rates between realignments is that exchange rate bands counter to the textbook result give central banks some monetary independence even with free international capital mobility the nature and amount of monetary independence is specified informally and in a formal model and quantified with swedish krona data altogether the amount of monetary independence appears sizable for instance an increase in the swedish krona band from zero to about 2 percent may reduce the krona interest rate s standard deviation by about a half

sources of lifetime inequality is lifetime inequality mainly due to differences across people established early in life or to differences in luck experienced over the working lifetime we answer this question within a model that features idiosyncratic shocks to human capital estimated directly from data as well as heterogeneity in ability to learn initial human capital and initial wealth we find that as of age 23 differences in initial conditions account for more of the variation in lifetime earnings lifetime wealth and lifetime utility than do differences in shocks received over the working lifetime jel d31 d91 j24 j31 to what degree is lifetime inequality due to differences across people established early in life as opposed to differences in luck experienced over the working lifetime among the individual differences established early in life which ones are the most important a convincing answer to these questions is of fundamental importance first and most simply an answer serves to contrast the potential importance of the myriad policies directed at modifying or at providing insurance for initial conditions e g public education against those directed at shocks over the working lifetime e g unemployment insurance second a discussion of lifetime inequality cannot go too far before discussing which specific type of initial condition is the most critical for determining how one fares in life third a useful framework for answering these questions should also be central in the analysis of a wide range of policies considered in macroeconomics public finance and labor economics we view lifetime inequality through the lens of a risky human capital model agents differ in terms of three initial conditions initial human capital learning ability and financial wealth initial human capital can be viewed as controlling the intercept of an agent s mean earnings profile whereas learning ability acts to rotate

the information content of institutional trades on the london stock exchange we construct a unique data set that includes all reported institutional block trades on the london stock exchange and analyze the market reaction to buy and sell trades we find that the type of investors behind the trade and the combination of the trade s size and the trader s resulting level of ownership are the major determinants of the information effects and the asymmetry between price impacts of buy and sell trades in particular large trades undertaken by fund managers the most active investors in our sample have strong information content while for the remaining trades we report limited support for the information and the price impact asymmetry hypotheses these results hold even after accounting for trade complexity and volatility effects in the regressions

the foreign exchange risk premium in a target zone with devaluation risk abstract the foreign exchange risk premium in an exchange rate target zone is derived when the exchange rate is heteroskedastic within the band and there is a separate devaluation risk the risk premium is then the sum of two separate risk premia arising from uncertainty about exchange rate movements within the band and from uncertainty about devaluations both real and nominal risk premia are considered real and nominal risk premia from movements within the band are very small real and nominal risk premia from devaluations are larger but still relatively small proportions of the interest rate differential

heterogeneity and government revenues higher taxes at the top abstract how effective is a more progressive tax scheme in raising revenues we answer this question in a life cycle economy with heterogeneity across households and endogenous labor supply our findings show that a tilt of the u s income tax schedule towards high earners leads to small increases in revenue maximal revenue in the long run is only 6 8 higher than in our benchmark about 0 8 of initial gdp while revenues from all sources increase by just about 0 6 our conclusions are that policy recommendations of this sort are misguided if the aim is to exclusively raise government revenue

the rule 415 experiment equity markets rule 415 allows a firm to register all the securities it reasonably expects to sell over the next two years and then at the management s option to sell those securities over these two years whenever it chooses this paper examines whether equity offerings made under rule 415 shelf offerings differ in issuing costs from equity offerings not sold under this rule we find that shelf offerings cost 13 less for syndicated issues and 51 less for nonsyndicated issues we also investigate the empirical relevance of the market overhang argument which suggests that shelf registrations depress the price of the registering firm s shares more than traditional registrations our data does not support the market overhang argument the securities and exchange commission s sec rule 415 which was permanently adopted for large firms in november 1983 allows a firm to register all the securities that it reasonably expects to sell over the next two years and then sell those securities whenever it chooses this procedure is known as shelf registration investment bankers securities regulators and corporate issuers vigorously debate the effect of rule 415 on firms issuing cost for new securities some mostly investment bankers argue that rule 415 increases new issue costs while others mostly issuers argue that rule 415 decreases new issue costs in addition many investment bankers argue that placing common stock on the shelf depresses the price of a firm s outstanding shares of stock most issuers

negotiated versus competitive underwritings of public utility bonds just one more time over the past decade a number of papers 1 2 3 6 7 9 have explored the relative merits of negotiation versus competitive bidding in the underwriting of corporate bonds particularly bonds issued by public utilities interest in this subject has been stimulated principally by an important public policy issue namely the sec s posture vis a vis its rule u 50 originally promulgated in 1940 this rule required competitive bidding on certain classes of utility bonds in 1974 however it was temporarily suspended on the grounds that chaotic conditions in the market for these securities called for more flexibility in the way issues could be underwritten while this suspension continues in effect rule u 50 could be reinstated at any time by the sec

the effect of block transactions on share prices australian evidence abstract the sydney stock exchange provides an unusually clean test of whether large transactions affect share prices it is small and trading is thin so our sample of block trades ranges in size from one to sixty days of normal trading volume sydney is a non dealer auction market and we can identify and eliminate all purchases and sales by brokers thus focusing on substitution effects the data are consistent with the perfect substitution hypothesis without price pressure block size distributions conform closely to the log normal distribution and kraus stoll regressions of security returns on untransformed block size are misspecified

assessing target zone credibility mean reversion and devaluation expectations in the erm 1979 1992 abstract the paper presents estimates of devaluation expectations for six erm currencies relative to the deutsche mark for the period march 1979 april 1992 both the simplest test and the drift adjustment method are used the simplest test adjusts interest rate differentials for the maximum and minimum expected rate of depreciation within the exchange rate band the drift adjustment method adjusts interest rate differentials by the estimated expected rate of depreciation within the band the latter method gives more precise estimates especially for short horizons and allows statistical inference and hypothesis testing expected rates of devaluation have generally fallen during the period still some devaluation expectations relative to the deutsche mark remain in 1992 except for the belgian luxembourg franc and the netherlands guilder expected rates of devaluation have fluctuated more than interest rate differentials

bank information monopolies and the mix of private and public debt claims this article examines the determinants of the mix of private and public debt using detailed information on the debt structure of 250 publicly traded corporations from 1980 through 1990 we find that the relationship between bank borrowing and the importance of growth opportunities depends on the number of banks the firm uses and whether the firm has public debt outstanding for firms with a single bank relationship the reliance on bank debt is negatively related to the importance of growth opportunities in contrast among firms borrowing from multiple banks the relationship is positive

taxation of human capital and wage inequality a cross country analysis wage inequality has been significantly higher in the united states than in continental european countries ceu since the 1970s moreover this inequality gap has further widened during this period as the us has experienced a large increase in wage inequality whereas the ceu has seen only modest changes this paper studies the role of labor income tax policies for understanding these facts we begin by documenting two new empirical facts that link these inequality differences to tax policies first we show that countries with more progressive labor income tax schedules have significantly lower before tax wage inequality at different points in time second progressivity is also negatively correlated with the rise in wage inequality during this period we then construct a life cycle model in which individuals decide each period whether to go to school work or be unemployed individuals can accumulate skills either in school or while working wage inequality arises from differences across individuals in their ability to learn new skills as well as from idiosyncratic shocks progressive taxation compresses the after tax wage structure thereby distorting the incentives to accumulate human capital in turn reducing the cross sectional dispersion of before tax wages we find that these policies can account for half of the difference between the us and the ceu in overall wage inequality and 76 of the difference in inequality at the upper end log 90 50 differential when this economy experiences skill biased technological change progressivity also dampens the rise in wage dispersion over time the model explains 41 of the difference in the total rise in inequality and 58 of the difference at the upper end

the effect of transaction size on off the run treasury prices this paper examines intra day trading data from the inter dealer broker market for u s treasury securities and measures the degree of price pressure in the off the run treasury market as is well known securities that would appear to be very close substitutes i e on the run and off the run treasury bonds behave as if there is some degree of market segmentation this is the first systematic study of the off the run treasury note and bond market focused entirely on a price pressure effect using intra day data the paper analyzes price pressure through matched pairs of securities that differ only in liquidity

expected and predicted realignments the ff dm exchange rate during the ems an empirical model of time varying realignment risk in an exchange rate target zone is developed expected rates of devaluation are estimated as the difference between interest rate differentials and estimated expected rates of depreciation within the exchange rate band using french franc deutsche mark data during the european monetary system the behavior of estimated expected rates of depreciation accord well with the theoretical model of bertola svensson 1990 we are also able to predict actial realignments with some success

interest rate differentials and exchange rate policies in austria the netherlands and belgium in this paper the small but persistent interest rate differentials via a vis germany which have existed in austria the netherlands and belgium are analysed these interest differentials may be thought of to consist of three parts expected exchange rate movements within the band expected changes of the central rates and a risk premium following a similar test as proposed by svensson we examine the credibility of the exchange rate policy in these countries according to this test the belgian exchange rate policy clearly lacks credibility for most of the period under consideration there are however serious problems applying this test to belgium due to the dual exchange rate system for austria and the netherlands we calculate interest differentials which are adjusted for expected exchange rate movements within the band it appears that the differences between the adjusted and the unadjusted interest differentials can be substantial the granger causal relationship between fundamentals like the rate of inflation the government budget deficit and the current account is also quite different for the adjusted and the unadjusted interest differential where the fundamentals have the highest explanatory power for the latter measure

liquidity costs and stock price response to convertible security calls firms announcements to call in the money convertible securities for redemption essentially force their conversion into common stock and such announcements are generally met with significant reductions in the calling firms equity values an explanation based on liquidity costs is advanced and tested the explanation implies that investors who choose to sell their shares early in the conversion period bear liquidity costs by selling at reduced prices consistent with the explanation the average share price decline is short lived lasting most of the conversion period thus a component of the call announcement effect appears to be due to liquidity costs copyright 1992 by university of chicago press

large block transactions the speed of response and temporary and permanent stock price effects abstract the paper investigates how quickly prices attain new equilibrium levels after large block transactions and measures the associated temporary and permanent price effects we find that prices adjust within at most three trades with most of the adjustment occurring in the first trade the temporary price effect for seller initiated transactions is related to block size but the temporary price effect observed for buyer initiated transactions is no larger than that observed in 100 share trades most of the price effect associated with block trades is permanent and is related to block size regardless of the initiating party

business cycle fluctuations and the life cycle how important is on the job skill accumulation abstract we study the effects of on the job skill accumulation on average hours worked by age and the volatility of hours over the life cycle in a calibrated general equilibrium model two forms of skill accumulation are considered learning by doing and on the job training in our economy with learning by doing individuals supply more labor early in the life cycle and less as they approach retirement than they do in an economy without this feature the impact of this feature on the volatility of hours over the life cycle depends on the value of the intertemporal elasticity of labor supply when individuals accumulate skills by on the job training there are only weak effects on both the steady state labor supply and its volatility over the life cycle

financial contracting and the choice between private placement and publicly offered bonds the financial contracting in private placement bonds and publicly offered bonds are different our data show that private placement bonds are more likely to have restrictive covenants than public bonds private placement bonds are also more likely to be issued by smaller and riskier firms for investment grade firms that issue bonds in both markets our analysis shows that firms select the bond type to minimize financing costs we find significant differences in the pricing of private placement and publicly offered bonds and some of these differences appear to be related to the different institutional features between the two markets

the demand for stocks an analysis of ipo auctions we analyze a unique dataset that includes the full demand schedules of 27 israeli ipos that were conducted as nondiscriminatory uniform price auctions to the best of our knowledge this is the first time the whole demand schedule for any asset is described the demand schedules are relatively flat around the auction clearing price the average elasticity is 27 the elasticity is low when the return distribution contains a large unique component we also find a significant average abnormal return of 4 5 on the first trading day and a positive correlation between the abnormal return and the elasticity of demand article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

an empirical analysis of the determinants of corporate debt ownership structure i examine the relation between corporate debt ownership structure and several firm characteristics suggested by recent theory the results demonstrate the importance of monitoring and information costs the likelihood and costs of inefficient liquidation and borrowers incentives in affecting firms debt source preferences several theoretical predictions receive support while others do not the results also suggest important differences between bank and private non bank debt which contrasts with most theoretical models additionally i find evidence of systematic use of bank debt by firms with access to public debt suggesting the benefits attributed to bank debt in theoretical models remain important after firms gain access to public debt markets although different lenders appear to have different maturity preferences the results also suggest debt maturity and debt ownership decisions may be separable

life cycle labor supply with human capital accumulation a dynamic model of labor supply under uncertainty with endogenous human capital accumulation is developed and estimated using 1968 81 panel study of income dynamics male panel data given a learning by doing technology for human capital investment and a translog utility function structural parameters for preferences and technology are estimated from the orthogonality conditions implied by the euler equations assuming rational expectations the parameter estimates conform to economic theory simulations of the model suggest that the intertemporal labor supply elasticity with endogenous wages will rise over the lifecycle producing different policy implications than typical models with exogenous wages and constant intertemporal elasticities copyright 1989 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

global and local information asymmetries illiquidity and sec rule 144a regulation s the case of indian gdrs abstract between 1992 and 1997 indian firms were the most frequent issuers of equity backed global depositary receipts gdrs governed by the sec s rule 144a and regulation s they also accounted for the highest dollar volume home market stock price responses to these issues are consistent with the hypotheses that gdrs enable firms to resolve two forms of information asymmetry 1 an asymmetry between issuing firms and international investors that results from market segmentation and 2 an asymmetry between indian firms and home market investors that resembles asymmetries that help explain abnormal returns in equity private placements by us firms our evidence suggests that gdr issuance can increase investors recognition of underlying shares even if there are no liquidity enhancements and even if disclosure requirements are not as demanding as those imposed on foreign firms whose depositary receipts trade in public us markets

opportunistic underinvestment in debt renegotiation and capital structure abstract this paper models debt renegotiation as a bargaining game between debtholders and shareholder oriented management in which management credibly threatens to run down firm assets to force concessions from the creditors creditors anticipate this opportunistic behavior by management creating an upper bound on debt capacity that is less than the value of the firm if an advantage to debt is introduced such as favorable tax treatment an interior optimal capital structure obtains even in the absence of realized bankruptcy costs our model also explains variations in debt equity ratios and the use of certain puzzling debt covenants

in search of liquidity block trades in the upstairs and downstairs markets we analyze the ability of various market mechanisms to provide liquidity for large equity trades using data on 21 077 block transactions in dow jones stocks we find that the down stairs nyse floor market is a significant source of liquidity although negotiation in the informal upstairs market provides better execution than the downstairs market for large trades these differences are economically small we find however that upstairs markets are used by traders who can credibly signal that their trades are liquidity motivated thus upstairs markets allow trades that may not otherwise occur article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

target zones and realignments recent contributions emphasize that the presence of exchange rate target zones has important effects on the within band behavior of exchange rates when agents are forward looking the authors find that the implications of available models are inconsistent with european exchange rate data and they suggest that the frequent realignments occurring in the period they consider may be responsible for this they construct a model in which the likelihood of a realignment in the near future increases as the exchange rate approaches the limits of its fluctuation band and show that its implications are broadly consistent with the evidence copyright 1992 by american economic association

demand curves for stocks do not slope down evidence using an exogenous supply shock we analyze the price impact of an exogenous share sale of inside blockholders who were forced to sell a part of their shareholdings following a regulatory change in india the affected firms experience a negative excess return of 4 3 during the issue week crucially the price impact reverses within around 16 days of the event our results are consistent with the view that long term demand curves for stocks are flat this view is echoed in classical finance theories the short term price reaction to a sale is probably due to temporary price pressure

optimal choice of contracting methods negotiated versus competitive underwritings revisited1 abstract we use a previously unexploited data base specifically debt offerings by at t and its subsidiaries in the period 1970 1974 to examine the relative costliness of competitive and negotiated offerings a sample based on the experience of a single issuer allows us to minimize the influence of agency considerations and differential riskiness of the issuers we find no systematic ex post cost difference and we also find that negotiation was chosen during comparatively unsettled times

an investigation of cost differences between public sales and private placements of debt abstract we examine the cost differences between public sales and private placements of debt for a sample of public utility issues the lowest cost method depends on a firm s transaction costs which comprise flotation costs agency costs and the costs of searching the market our findings suggest that firms minimize the cost of issuing securities by selecting the market providing the lowest transaction costs

cross jurisdictional income shifting by u s multinationals evidence from international bond offerings we examine whether tax incentives influence where u s multinationals locate their interest deductions worldwide our sample includes international bond offerings by u s multinationals during 1987 1997 denominated in the currencies of australia canada france germany italy japan or the united kingdom our results suggest that u s multinationals debt location decisions take into account the effect of jurisdiction specific tax loss carryforwards and binding foreign tax credit limitations on the value of debt tax shields our results are also consistent with u s multinationals locating interest deductions in different tax jurisdictions as a mechanism to achieve tax motivated income shifting

training and lifetime income this paper challenges the notion that on the job training investments are quantitatively important for workers welfare and argues that on the job training may not increase lifetime income by more than 1 percent i argue that it is very difficult to reconcile the slowdown in wage growth late in a worker s career with optimizing behavior unless the technology for learning on the job is such that it generates very low gains from training the analysis is based on a nonparametric methodology for estimating the learning technology from wage profiles the results are arrived at by comparing the lifetime income when the worker optimally invests in his human capital to the one where he does not make any investments jel e24 j24 j31

stochastic devaluation risk and the empirical fit of target zone models in the model of this paper an exchange rate fluctuates between given boundaries for random lengths of time and jumps discretely when devaluation occur we provide explicit solutions for the stochastic processes followed by the exchange rate and by the expected rate of depreciation when the likelihood and the size of devaluations vary stochastically over time the model produces realistic patterns of covariation between exchange rates and interest rate differentials and provides interesting interpretations of available empirical evidence we also specify how to infer devaluation risk from target zone data

direct equity financing a resolution of a paradox when raising new equity capital managers have historically rejected the direct offer method favoring instead the seemingly more expensive underwritten public issue this paper provides a resolution for this equity financing paradox by demonstrating empirically that firms which engage in direct offers enjoy a comparative cost advantage that is more than sufficient to account for the absolute reported cost differences between the two methods of equity financing

the dartboard column second hand information and price pressure this study analyzes the effect of second hand information on the behavior of security prices and volume using analysts recommendations published in the monthly dartboard column of the wall street journal for the two days following the publication of the recommendations average positive abnormal returns of 4 percent nearly twice the level of abnormal returns documented in previous research on analyst recommendations and average volume double normal volume levels on the two days following publication of the recommendations are documented the positive abnormal return on announcement is partially reversed within 25 trading days the authors conclude that the positive abnormal return on announcement of the recommendations is a result of naive buying pressure as well as the information content of the analysts recommendations

borrowing relationships intermediation and the cost of issuing public securities abstract this paper investigates how an established borrowing relationship affects the costs associated with initial public offerings of equity our model illustrates how the existence of a borrowing relationship reduces the ex ante uncertainty about the value of the issuing firm s equity in the secondary market if underpricing is related to uncertainty a borrowing relationship can reduce underpricing empirically we find that other things equal ipos of firms with previously established borrowing relationships are underpriced substantially less than other ipos

tax policy and human capital formation missing from recent discussions of tax reform is any systematic analysis of the effects of various tax proposals on skill formation this gap in the literature in empirical public finance is due to the absence of any empirically based general equilibrium models with both human capital formation and physical capital formation that are consistent with observations on modern labor markets this paper is a progress report on our ongoing research on formulating and estimating dynamic general equilibrium models with endogenous heterogeneous human capital accumulation our model explains many features of rising wage inequality in the u s economy james heckman lance lochner and christopher taber 1998 in this paper we use our model to study the impacts on skill formation of proposals to switch from progressive taxes to flat income and consumption taxes for the sake of brevity we focus on steady states in this paper although we study both transitions and steady states in our research this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the upstairs market for large block transactions analysis and measurement of price effects this article develops a model of the upstairs market where order size beliefs and prices are determined endogenously we test the model s predictions using unique data for 5 625 equity trades during the period 1985 to 1992 that are known to be upstairs transactions and are identified as either buyer or seller initiated we find that price movements prior to the trade date are significantly positively related to trade size consistent with information leakage as the block is shopped upstairs further the temporary price impact or liquidity effect is a concave function of order size which may result from upstairs intermediation

financial asset demand is elastic evidence from new issues of federal home loan bank debt abstract we estimate the slope of the demand curve for newly auctioned fhlb discount notes and investigate the impacts of arbitrage risk and heterogeneity of investor beliefs on demand elasticity our unique dataset of roughly 2900 observations of two price quantity pairs the first from a pre auction dealer survey the second from actual auction results provides the quantity shift necessary to identify demand in contrast to previous findings of downward sloping demand curves for equities we show that demand for newly issued fhlb notes is nearly perfectly elastic during normal market conditions we find however that frictions like arbitrage risk and to a lesser extent heterogeneity of investor beliefs negatively affect elasticity and explain the nearly 50 drop in elasticity observed during the recent financial crisis

intervention policy and mean reversion in exchange rate target zones the swedish the intervention policy of the swedish central bank is studied using daily intervention data for the late 1 980s in contrast to the first generation of target zone models we find that the interventions occur all over the exchange rate band and almost every day based on this evidence we estimate an exchange rate target zone model with intra marginal interventions the results go a long way towards explaining the well established hump shaped exchange rate distribution and lack of non linearities

s p 500 index additions and earnings expectations stock price increases associated with addition to the s p 500 index have been interpreted as evidence that demand curves for stocks slope downward a key premise underlying this interpretation is that index inclusion provides no new information about companies future prospects we examine this premise by analyzing analysts earnings per share eps forecasts around index inclusion and by comparing postinclusion realized earnings to preinclusion forecasts relative to benchmark companies companies newly added to the index experience signi cant increases in eps forecasts and signi cant improvements in realized earnings these results indicate that s p index inclusion is not an information free event studies that examine the prices of common stocks when they become included in the standard poor s s p 500 index have appeared regularly in leading nance journals since 1986 fascination with the eiect of s p index inclusion on stock prices appears to stem from the possibility that inclusion in the index is an information free eventfinformation free in the sense that s p makes no claim that inclusion represents an endorsement of the newly included stock s future prospects 1 indeed s p makes an a rmative claim to the contrary company

does the liquidity of a debt issue increase with its size evidence from the corporate bond and medium term note markets to investigate the liquidity of large issues this study tests for yield differences between corporate bonds and medium term notes mtns in the sample mtns have an average issue size of 4 million compared with 265 million for bonds among mtns that have the same issuance date the same maturity date and the same corporate issuer we find no relation between size and yields moreover bonds and mtns have statistically equivalent yields thus rather than suggesting that large issues have greater liquidity these findings indicate that large and small securities issued by the same borrower are close substitutes the objective of this study is to test for a relation between the size of corporate debt offerings and their yields if investors value large offerings for their greater liquidity then large issues will have lower yields than small issues alternatively if investors view securities of the same borrower as close substitutes there may be no relation between issue size and yields to investigate whether issue size is a significant determinant of liquidity we test for yield differences between medium term notes mtns and bonds of the same corporate issuers in most respects mtns are similar to corporate bonds however mtns have an average issue size of around 5 million in contrast most offerings in the bond market raise at least 100 million thus if liquidity increases with issue size bonds will have lower yields than mtns and large mtns will have lower yields than small mtns the data we use consist of 4 182 mtns and 68 bonds offered by four large borrowers between october 1987 and december 1992 the issues in the sample range in size from 102 000 to 1 2 billion a disperse distribution that allows us to make reliable inferences about the relation between issue size and yields to test for a size effect within the mtn market we create subsamples of mtns that have the same issuance date the same maturity date and the same corporate issuer mtns in these subsamples are identical except for their yields and size on average yields on large mtns in the subsamples are 0 35 basis point higher than yields on small mtns a finding that is inconsistent with the liquidity hypothesis we also test for a yield difference between bonds

investor yield and gross underwriting spread comparisons among u s dollar domestic yankee eurodollar and global bonds abstract the characteristics and features of domestic foreign eurobonds and global bonds differ from one another as do their regulation we develop regression models to compare investor yield differences that should logically exist at issuance for these bond market segments for u s dollar denominated bonds our empirical results show that ceteris paribus both privately placed and rule 144a eurodollar issues yield more than publicly placed bonds yankee bonds yield insignificantly more than domestic bonds and the bearer feature common to eurodollar bonds is not prized enough by institutional investors for them to accept a lower yield relative to domestic or yankee bonds we do not find a statistically significant difference between the investor yield spread on u s dollar global bonds and u s domestic bonds or yankee bonds or eurodollar bonds we also study underwriting costs of publicly traded bonds and find ceteris paribus that eurodollar bonds are far more costly for the firm to issue than domestic bonds yankee bonds or global bonds domestic and yankee bonds are more expensive than global bonds and there is no significant cost difference between domestic and yankee bonds

stock price effects and costs of secondary distributions abstract this study does not support the view that a large number of shares can be sold at the prevailing market price and at a small cost a significant stock price decrease is observed at the initial announcement of secondary distributions the price declines are greater for offerings by officers and directors and for larger offerings but are significant for all types of sellers and for large and small offerings there is no significant price decline at the offering when secondaries are announced in advance underwriting and other selling costs are substantial and are positively related to relative offering size

price and volume effects associated with changes in the s p 500 list new evidence for the existence of price pressures attempts to identify price pressures caused by large transactions may be inconclusive if the transactions convey new information to the market this problem is addressed in an examination of prices and volume surrounding changes in the composition of the s p 500 since these changes cause some investors to adjust their holdings of the affected securities and since it is unlikely that the changes convey information about the future prospects of these securities they provide an excellent opportunity to study price pressures the results are consistent with the price pressure hypothesis immediately after an addition is announced prices increase by more than 3 percent this increase is nearly fully reversed after 2 weeks the efficient market hypothesis emh predicts that security prices reflect all publicly available information therefore one corollary of the emh is that you can sell or buy large blocks of stock at close to the market price as long as you can convince other investors that you have no private information 1 this statement assumes that securities are near perfect substitutes for each other if so the excess demand for a single security will be very elastic and the sale or purchase of a large number of shares will have no impact on price in contrast to the emh scholes 8 kraus and stoll 5 hess and frost 4 and others propose two hypotheses which predict that a large stock sale purchase will cause the price to decrease increase even if no new information is associated with the transaction the imperfect substitutes hypothesis ish also known as the distribution effect hypothesis assumes that securities are not close substitutes for each other and hence that long term demand is less than perfectly elastic under this hypothesis equilibrium prices change when demand curves shift to eliminate excess demand price reversals are not expected because the new price reflects a new equilibrium distribution of security holders the price pressure hypothesis pph assumes that investors who accommodate demand shifts must be compensated for the transaction costs and portfolio risks that they bear when they agree to immediately buy or sell securities which they otherwise would not trade these passive suppliers of liquidity are attracted by immediate price drops rises associated with large sales purchases they are compensated for their liquidity service when prices rise drop to their fullinformation levels the pph like the emh assumes that long run demand is

empirical features of the second generation target zone models mean reverting fundamentals and endogenous devaluation risk we show that within bertola and svensson s second generation target zone model mean reverting interventions and endogenous devaluation risk are closely interrelated over the period 1983 93 we analyze the degree of mean reversion in the underlying fundamental process as well as the term structure of interest rate differentials vis a vis germany for six exchange rate mechanism currencies for austria denmark and the netherlands and for belgium after 1990 our estimates are broadly in line with the first generation target zone model whereas those for france and italy are in accordance with the model that allows for endogenous devaluation risk jel f31 e43

the case for a progressive tax from basic research to policy recommendations the fair distribution of the tax burden has long been a central issue in policyhe fair distribution of the tax burden has long been a central issue in policymaking a large academic literature has developed models of optimal tax making a large academic literature has developed models of optimal tax theory to cast light on the problem of optimal tax progressivity in this theory to cast light on the problem of optimal tax progressivity in this paper we explore the path from basic research results in optimal tax theory to paper we explore the path from basic research results in optimal tax theory to formulating policy recommendations formulating policy recommendations models in optimal tax theory typically posit that the tax system should maximize a models in optimal tax theory typically posit that the tax system should maximize a social welfare function subject to a government budget constraint taking into account social welfare function subject to a government budget constraint taking into account that individuals respond to taxes and transfers social welfare is larger when resources that individuals respond to taxes and transfers social welfare is larger when resources are more equally distributed but redistributive taxes and transfers can negatively are more equally distributed but redistributive taxes and transfers can negatively affect incentives to work save and earn income in the fi rst place this creates the clasaffect incentives to work save and earn income in the fi rst place this creates the classical trade off between equity and effi ciency which is at the core of the optimal income sical trade off between equity and effi ciency which is at the core of the optimal income tax problem in general optimal tax analyses maximize social welfare as a function of tax problem in general optimal tax analyses maximize social welfare as a function of individual utilities the sum of utilities in the utilitarian case the marginal weight for individual utilities the sum of utilities in the utilitarian case the marginal weight for a given person in the social welfare function measures the value of an additional dollar a given person in the social welfare function measures the value of an additional dollar of consumption expressed in terms of public funds such welfare weights depend on of consumption expressed in terms of public funds such welfare weights depend on the level of redistribution and are decreasing with income whenever society values the level of redistribution and are decreasing with income whenever society values more equality of income therefore optimal income tax theory is fi rst a normative more equality of income therefore optimal income tax theory is fi rst a normative theory that shows how a social welfare objective combines with constraints arising from theory that shows how a social welfare objective combines with constraints arising from limits on resources and behavioral responses to taxation in order to derive specifi c limits on resources and behavioral responses to taxation in order to derive specifi c

do demand curves for stocks slope down since september 1976 stocks newly included into the standard and poor s 500 index have earned a significant positive abnormal return at the announcement of the inclusion this return does not disappear for at least ten days after the inclusion the returns are positively related to measures of buying by index funds consistent with the hypothesis that demand curves for stocks slope down the returns are not related to s p s bond ratings which is inconsistent with a plausible version of the hypothesis that inclusion is a certification of the quality of the stock

transparency and liquidity a study of block trades on the london stock exchange under different publication rules this article examines whether reducing a market s transparency by delaying the publication of prices for block trades has any impact on liquidity the analysis uses a sample of 5987 blocks from the london stock exchange that cover three different publication regimes immediate 1987 88 90 minutes 1991 92 and 24 hours 1989 90 delaying publication does not affect the time taken by prices to reach a new level which is rapid under all regimes spreads differ across years but their size relates more closely to market volatility than to speed of publication there is therefore no gain in liquidity from delayed publication

presidential address asset price dynamics with slow moving capital i describe asset price dynamics caused by the slow movement of investment capital to trading opportunities the pattern of price responses to supply or demand shocks typically involves a sharp reaction to the shock and a subsequent and more extended reversal the amplitude of the immediate price impact and the pattern of the subsequent recovery can reflect institutional impediments to immediate trade such as search costs for trading counterparties or time to raise capital by intermediaries i discuss special impediments to capital formation during the recent financial crisis that caused asset price distortions which subsided afterward after presenting examples of price reactions to supply shocks in normal market settings i offer a simple illustrative model of price dynamics associated with slow moving capital due to the presence of inattentive investors i address the implications for asset price dynamics of the apparent slow movement of investment capital to trading opportunities the arrival of new capital to an investment opportunity can be delayed by fractions of a second in some markets for example an electronic limit order book market for equities or by months in other markets such as that for catastrophe risk insurance accordingly prices respond to supply or demand shocks with a sharp reaction because of the relatively small subset of capital and thus risk bearing capacity that is immediately available to absorb a shock on short notice such a price impact is substantially reversed over time as additional capital becomes available the amplitude of the immediate price impact and the pattern of the subsequent recovery can reflect many sorts of attention costs to trade as well as institutional impediments to capital movement such as search costs for trading

the s p500 index effect reconsidered evidence from overnight and intraday stock price performance and volume abstract this study focuses on s p500 inclusions and deletions examining the impact of potential overnight price adjustment after the announcement of an s p500 index change we find evidence of a significant overnight price change that diminishes the returns available to speculators although there are still profits available from the first day after announcement until a few days after the actual event more importantly observing the tick by tick stock price performance and volume effects on the key days during the event window for the first time we find evidence of consistent trading patterns during trading hours a separate analysis of nasdaq and nyse listed stocks allows for a detailed examination of the price and volume effect at an intra day level we find that index funds appear to cluster their rebalancing activities near to and after the close on the event date suggesting that they are more concerned with tracking error than profit

the maturity structure of corporate debt we provide an empirical examination of the determinants of corporate debt maturity our evidence offers strong support for the contracting cost hypothesis firms that have few growth options are large or are regulated have more long term debt in their capital structure we find little evidence that firms use the maturity structure of their debt to signal information to the market the evidence is consistent however with the hypothesis that firms with larger information asymmetries issue more short term debt we find no evidence that taxes affect debt maturity

human capital and earnings distribution dynamics abstract earnings heterogeneity plays a crucial role in modern macroeconomics we document that mean earnings and measures of earnings dispersion and skewness all increase in us data over most of the working life cycle for a typical cohort as the cohort ages we show that i a human capital model can replicate these properties from the right distribution of initial human capital and learning ability ii differences in learning ability are essential to produce an increase in earnings dispersion over the life cycle and iii differences in learning ability account for the bulk of the variation in the present value of earnings across agents these findings emphasize the need to further understand the role and origins of initial conditions

intramarginal intervention in the ems and the target zone model of exchange rate behavior abstract exchange rate data produced by the european monetary system ems contradict important predictions made by the standard target zone model we show that the contradictions reflect a misinterpretation of policies pursued by the ems countries they intervened intramarginally to keep exchange rates will within their bands not at the edges of the bands to keep rates from crossing them in the basle nyborg agreement of 1987 however they agreed to make fuller use of the band and exchange rates behave differently thereafter the effect appears clearly in the behavior of the french franc and less decisively in the behavior of the italian lira we conclude by examining and rejecting other explanations for the observed difference in exchange rate behavior

the term structure of interest rate differentials in a target zone theory and swedish data abstract the term structure of interest rate differentials is derived in a model of a small open economy with a target zone exchange rate regime for given time to maturity the interest rate differential is decreasing in the exchange rate and for given exchange rate the interest rate differential s absolute value and its instantaneous variability are both decreasing in the time to maturity devaluation realignment risks are incorporated and imply upward shifts of the interest rate differentials several implications of the theory are found to be broadly consistent with data on swedish exchange rates and interest differentials for the period 1986 1989

capital raising in the offshore market abstract us corporations can raise capital in the offshore market using regulation s adopted by the securities and exchange commission sec in 1990 and modified in 1996 we examine how offshore offerings are done under regulation s what types of companies use this market the discount companies offer investors to compensate for illiquidity in the market and the impact of the new disclosure requirements on capital raising in the offshore market we find that small firms tend to raise capital in this market during our sample period before the 1996 rule change the median market capitalization of reporting firms was 16 82 million with a median stock price of 1 13 the mean and median discount offered to foreign investors was 32 84 and 40 53 respectively offerings during this period resulted in average share dilution of 11 97 we find that before the disclosure requirements firms were gaming the system by giving foreign investors just enough time to resell the securities back into the united states before the initial sale became public information after the rule changes regulation s offerings are not perceived to be shady and larger firms are now using the market resulting in lower average discount and dilution

institutional trades and intraday stock price behavior abstract this paper examines the price effect of institutional stock trading using a unique data set that reports the transactions large and small of 37 large institutional money management firms the direction of each trade and the identity of the management firm behind each trade are known although institutional trades are associated with some price pressure we find that the average effect is small there is also a marked asymmetry between the price impact of buys versus sells we relate our findings to various hypotheses on the elasticity of demand for stocks the cost of executing transactions and the determinants of market impact although market capitalization and relative trade size influence the market impact of a trade the dominant influence is the identity of the money manager behind the trade