Traditionally, financial theory has offered little guidance to managers who must choose whether to list their stock on an exchange or allow it to continue trading over-the-counter. Recent developments in market microstructure theory allow a more careful analysis of the exchange listing decision....

Franchising is commonly viewed as a source of expansion capital for small companies with "limited access to capital markets". Franchising, however, is used by many large, publicly traded companies. This paper summarizes the agency-cost explanation for why firms franchise and provides related...

Before the tax-law changes of 1986, common stock repurchases received favorable tax treatment relative to cash dividends, yet more than 80% of the New York Stock Exchange-listed firms did not use repurchases for distributing value to their stockholders. Prior research suggests a possible...

We examine trading activity, bid-ask spreads, and potential arbitrage opportunities for market makers in the period around conversion-forcing calls of convertible preferred securities. We find an increased turnover in the called convertible preferred stock, which is consistent with a clientele...

"Open-market repurchase programs do not allow for precise estimates of share buy-back intensity to measure liquidity effects. To circumvent the uncertainty surrounding the quantity and timing of shares truly acquired in repurchase programs and to measure their long-term impact, we examine Dutch...

"We examine the individual and joint relation of discretionary accounting accruals, underwriter reputation, and venture capital backing with the long-run performance of initial public offerings (IPOs). We find that although correlated to some extent, these variables do not manifest the same...