This study examines the liquidity of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), as measured by their bid-ask spread. We find that REIT spreads have increased over the period 1986-1990, are inversely related to market capitalization, and are similar in magnitude to spreads on other stocks of...

The study investigates competition in the market for NASDAQ stocks during a recent period in US equity markets history when three major Electronic Communication Networks (ECNs)--Archipelago, Island, and Instinet--are identifiable in the Trade and Quote (TAQ) database. We show that the ECNs...

We find direct evidence that institutions increase round-trip stock trades, increase average commissions per share, and pay unusually high commissions on some trades in order to send abnormally high commissions to the lead underwriters of profitable initial public offerings (IPOs). These excess...

The institutional brokerage industry faces an ever-increasing pressure to lower trading costs, which has already driven down average commissions and shifted volume toward low-cost execution venues. However, traditional full-service brokers that bundle execution with services remain a force and...

This paper examines the transition of economies of Albania and the Czech Republic, noting that their relative failure and success could have been predicted by academic literature. Financial intermediation theory predicted the rise of independently created mutual funds in the Czech Republic,...

We find dividends do matter to shareholders, but more in declining markets than advancing ones. Dividend-paying stocks outperform non-dividend-paying stocks by 1 to 2% more per month in declining markets than in advancing markets. These results are economically and statistically significant and...

We find that investors across the globe differentially prefer dividend-paying stocks over non-dividend-paying stocks more in declining markets than in advancing markets, whether in developed or emerging markets or before or after the 2008 global crisis, even accounting for growth opportunities,...