This study examines the intertemporal and cross-sectional association between the bid-ask spread and insider trading. Empirical results from the cross-sectional regression analysis reveal that market makers establish larger spreads for stocks with a greater extent of insider trading. The...

We analyze the pricing and informational efficiency of the Italian market for options written on the most important stock index, the MIB30. We find several indications inconsistent with the hypothesis that the Italian MIBO is an efficient market. We report that a striking percentage of the data...

This paper studies the relationship between civil war and the value of firms in a poor, resource abundant country using microeconomic data for Angola. We focus on diamond mining firms and conduct an event study on the sudden end of the conflict, marked by the death of the rebel movement leader...

This paper studies the effects of conflict onset on asset markets applying the event study methodology. We consider a sample of 112 conflicts during the period 1974-2004 and find that a sizeable fraction of them had a significant impact on stock market indices and on major commodity prices....

We examine the effect of tick size on quotation behavior in a naturally-controlled experimental setting. Of the top six Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs), three allow sub-penny quotes (group S) and three do not (group P). For a sample of stocks that trade on all six of these ECNs, we...

In this paper we analyze the interrelatedness of security analysis and market-making activities. Our results indicate that there exists a bi-directional and positive relation between analyst following and the number of market makers. Using detailed data on analyst and dealer affiliations, we...

We examine execution costs and quote clustering on the NYSE and NASDAQ using 517 matching pairs of stocks after decimalization. We find that the mean spread of NASDAQ stocks is greater than the mean spread of NYSE stocks when spreads are equally weighted across stocks and the difference is...

In this article we analyze the quotation behavior of NASDAQ market makers using individual dealer quote and trade data. We find that the majority (58.2%) of quotes posted by NASDAQ dealers are noncompetitive (i.e., both the bid and ask quotes are not at the inside market) and only 19.5% (18.4%)...

This paper studies the relationship between civil war and the value of firms in a poor, resource abundant country using microeconomic data for Angola. We focus on diamond mining firms and conduct an event study on the sudden end of the conflict, marked by the death of the rebel movement leader...