We analyse the impact that political business cycles and party preferences have on smuggling illegal goods across the US--Mexico border during the years 1980--2004. We find that smuggling is significantly reduced prior to Congressional elections -- but only if the incumbent President is Republican.

I use the relative prices of American Depositary Receipts and their underlying stocks to derive devaluation expectations. I find that stockholders currently perceive an overvalued peso. Devaluation expectations are driven by the incentive of competitive devaluation and sovereign default risk.

Takeover bids provide an option right to the target's shareholders; they guarantee the offered price but maintain the chance of higher offers. Using Option Pricing Theory (OPT) we estimate the probability and expected value of higher bids from target stock prices.