This paper studies the influence of the legal environment and economic conditions on the form taken by life insurance company incorporations between 1900 and 1949. It identifies three key factors associated with mutual formation - low initial capital requirements for mutuals, regulatory...

We use event-time methodology to study legal insider trading associated with mergers circa 1900. For mergers with "prospective" disclosures similar to today's, we find substantial value gains at announcement, implying participation by "outside" shareholders despite the absence of insider...

The tax burden on equity securities has varied substantially over time and remains a source of continuing policy debate. This paper investigates whether investors were compensated for the tax burden of equity securities over the period between 1913 and 2006. Taxes on equity securities vary over...

We develop a general equilibrium model in which stock prices of innovative firms exhibit "bubbles" during technological revolutions. In the model, the average productivity of a new technology is uncertain and subject to learning. During technological revolutions, the nature of this uncertainty...

To test a model of contagion--where individuals hear some bad news and communicate it to their acquaintances, who then pass it on, leading to a market panic--requires a knowledge of the information networks of participants, something hitherto unavailable. For two panics in the 1850s this paper...