This article analyzes the manifold situations in which the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) has influenced—or has failed to influence—federal securities regulation and state corporate law, and the prospective roles for the EMH in these contexts. In federal securities regulation, the EMH has...

With the implementation of NASD Rule 2711 in 2002, each brokerage firm is now required to publicly disseminate the distribution of stock ratings in each research report. Hence, this paper investigates the relationship between the percentage of buy recommendations and probability of deciding to...

We study the interplay of share prices and firm decisions when share prices aggregate and convey noisy information about fundamentals to investors and managers. First, we show that the informational feedback between the firm's share price and its investment decisions leads to a systematic...

Better developed legal and political institutions result in greater availability of reliable firm-specific information. When stock prices reflect more firm-specific information there will be less stock price synchronicity. This paper traces the experience of China, an economy undergoing dramatic...

This study assesses the impact of self-regulation on equity markets by analysing IPO failure rates on the London Stock Exchange during 1900–13. Focussing on differences between Official Quotation (OQ) and Special Settlement (SS) methods of going public, we find that the failure rate of IPOs by...

Using a dataset of Home Equity Loan securities issued up to June 2007 and rated by Moody’s and/or S&P, this paper investigates how discretionary ratings are priced by the market. To this end, a measure of relative rating inflation (Rating Bias) observable at issuance is proposed. The way...

This study analyzes information production and trading behavior of banks with lending relationships. We combine trade-by-trade supervisory data and credit-registry data to examine banks' proprietary trading in borrower stocks around a large number of corporate events. We find that relationship...

We survey the textual sentiment literature, comparing and contrasting the various information sources, content analysis methods, and empirical models that have been used to date. We summarize the important and influential findings about how textual sentiment impacts on individual, firm-level and...

Stock prices react significantly to the tone (negativity of words) managers use on earnings conference calls. This reaction reflects reasonably rational use of information. “Tone surprise” – the residual when negativity in managerial tone is regressed on the firm’s recent economic...

During a financial crisis, when investors are most in need of liquidity and accurate prices, hedge funds cut their arbitrage positions and hoard cash. The paper explains this phenomenon. We argue that the fragile nature of the capital structure of hedge funds, combined with low market liquidity,...