In the first essay, "Do Firms Knowingly Sell Overvalued Equity?", I develop a simple equilibrium model which shows that insider trading around seasoned equity offerings (SEO) depends on both the quality of issuing firms and insiders' exogenous consumption shocks, neither of which are known by...

Logic suggests a link might exist between insider trades and share repurchases for their potential to signal mispricing when market prices deviate from fair value; both events emanate from essentially the same set of decision makers. A rich set of literatures suggests that executives have timing...

We provide a new insight on how changes in risk affect a firm's capital structure decisions. Using an approach that alleviates potential problems caused by high capital structure adjustment costs, we test whether firms that experience a substantial increase in risk choose an external financing...

A rich literature argues that stock repurchases often serve as positive economic signals beneficial to investors. Yet due to their inherent flexibility, open market repurchase programs have long been criticized as weak signals lacking commitment. We evaluate whether some managers potentially use...

This paper investigates the long-run stock returns of privatization initial public offering (IPO) firms using a sample of 241 privatization IPOs from 42 countries during the period 1981-2003. We compare one-, three-, and five-year holding period returns of privatization IPOs to those of the...

Using a comprehensive sample of equity-linked private securities offerings by Korean firms from 1989 to 2000, we examine whether such offerings can be used as a mechanism for tunneling among firms belonging to a chaebol. We find that the chaebol-affiliated issuers sell private securities at a...

This paper investigates the behavior of investors in the equity option market using a unique and detailed dataset of open interest and volume for all contracts listed on the Chicago Board Options Exchange over the 1990 through 2001 period. We document major stylized facts about the option market...

We document insider trading activities of all companies listed on the NYSE, Amex, and Nasdaq exchanges during the 1975-1995 period. Insider trading is common, and in more than half the sample firms, there is at least some insider activity in a given year. In general, very little market movement...

This paper examines the influence of corporate governance systems on insiders' ability to profit from their information advantage and the ways through which corporate governance systems influence such ability. We find that corporate governance significantly reduces the profitability of insider...