The 2008 financial crisis exemplifies significant uncertainties in corporate financing conditions. We develop a unified dynamic q-theoretic framework where firms have both a precautionary-savings motive and a market-timing motive for external financing and payout decisions, induced by stochastic...

We examine market timing in the equity issuance of firms controlled by large shareholders using a hand-collected data set of controlling shareholders' ownership stakes in Chile between 1990 and 2009. When a firm issues shares, the controlling shareholder can either maintain or change his...

One of the most prominent stylized facts in corporate finance is that equity issues tend to follow periods of high stock returns. We document that firms exhibit such timing behavior only in response to high returns that coincide with strong institutional investor demand. When not accompanied by...

Little is known about the price firms pay for stock repurchases. Using a data set of all U.S. repurchases from 2004 to 2011, we compare the actual average price paid monthly in a repurchase with the average market price for the same stock over various horizons. We find that firms repurchase...