The long-run abnormal returns following both stock repurchases and seasoned equity offerings disappear for the events in the most recent decade. The disappearance is associated with the changing market environment – increased institutional investment, decreased trading costs, improved...

We propose and implement a direct test of the hypothesis of oligopolistic competition in the U.S. underwriting market against the alternative of implicit collusion among underwriters. We construct a simple model of interaction between heterogenous underwriters and heterogenous firms and solve it...

Studies have shown that firm asset growth predicts cross-sectional stock returns. Firms that shrink their assets earn superior returns while firms that substantially expand their assets incur poor returns in the following years. I show that the negative asset growth often implies poor operating...

We develop a dynamic model with complete information to study IPO pricing. The model predicts tacit collusion among underwriters and endogenously generates: (1) IPO underpricing; (2) the fluctuation of IPO volume; (3) the time-variation of underpricing in hot and cold markets. In addition, the...

Theory and recent evidence suggest that overvalued firms can create value for shareholders if they exploit their overvaluation by using their stock as currency to purchase less overvalued firms. We challenge this idea and show that, in practice, overvalued acquirers significantly overpay for...

Current theories of capital structure have difficulty explaining the aspects of financing behavior we document. In contrast to the tradeoff theory, seasoned equity offers frequently move firms away from their target leverage ratios. At odds with the pecking-order theory, SEO firms typically are...

Prior studies have documented that firms' operating performance deteriorates following seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). This paper proposes and empirically tests the hypothesis that the poor performance is caused by managers' overinvestment. I show that, subsequent to the offering, SEO firms...

Theories such as Merton (1987, Journal of Finance) predict a positive relation between idiosyncratic risk and expected return when investors do not diversify their portfolio. Ang, Hodrick, Xing, and Zhang (2006, Journal of Finance 61, 259-299) however find that monthly stock returns are...

My 2009 JFE paper ["Idiosyncratic Risk and the Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns', Journal of Financial Economics, Vol. 91, pp. 24-37] documents a positive and statistically significant cross-sectional relation between expected idiosyncratic volatility (E(IVOL)) and expected stock return....