Using the NOx budget trading program (NBP) as a quasi-natural experiment, we examine whether a reduction in air pollution enhances inventor risk-taking, thus making inventors more innovative. We find that inventors located in NBP participating states produce more patents after the introduction...

Distorted prices misguide managerial incentives and resource allocation. Distorted prices may occur when firms' stock prices are near their 52-week highs because investors tend to perceive the stocks as relatively overvalued and are reluctant to bid prices higher even if new information warrants...

Managers have repeatedly indicated in surveys that stock splits are intended to improve liquidity. However, previous studies using bid-ask spread and turnover as measures of liquidity find results to the contrary. This paper offers a new perspective on the issue. Stock splits can make buying...

We estimate speeds of adjustment of individual stock prices to private information using daily data. We use a model in which private information gives rise to return variance and private information decays linearly over time. We find that, on average about 85 to 88 percent of private information...

We report three new findings that rely upon the high-low price range as an estimate of stock return variance. The predictability of variance is associated with persistence in high prices and with correlated shocks to high and low prices. Excess stock returns are positively related to anticipated...

This article examines the relation between stock returns and a set of operating decisions: layoffs, operation closings, and pay cuts. We find evidence that cost-cutting measures occur after significant stock price declines. Announcements of layoffs and temporary operation closings are associated...

We hypothesize that high stock price levels impede informed trading on the stocks and reduce price informativeness. This is because uninformed trading is needed to facilitate informed trading, and high stock prices may impose budget constraints on uninformed investors. Indeed, we find, for...

We examine whether the emotional shocks associated with terrorist attacks affect local inventors' productivity. We find that high-fatality attacks make inventors less innovative, and low-fatality attacks make them more innovative. Inventors living in high risk-taking environments have greater...

Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) raises firms' incentive to lobby policymakers to access policy information and influence policy outcomes. Surprisingly, we find that non-lobbying firms are less likely to initiate lobbying during heightened EPU periods. The evidence is consistent with our...

Firms can change their outstanding shares to manage their stock price levels. Those with lower stock prices tend to attract more speculative trading, which causes higher price volatility and may force their managers to excessively focus on short-term earnings at the expense of R&D and other...