A rich literature argues that stock repurchases often serve as positive economic signals beneficial to investors. Yet due to their inherent flexibility, open market repurchase programs have long been criticized as weak signals lacking commitment. We evaluate whether some managers potentially use...

We explore the distinguishing characteristics of firms that completed or stopped their repurchase programs. Our findings help further understanding the economic reasons why firms would stop buybacks. Based on our international sample of 818 completed and 101 stopped share repurchase programs...

Payout flexibility from share repurchases enables firms to reduce dilution and funding cost of stock option grants. Using daily repurchase disclosures, we show that U.K. firms use this flexibility to implement (a) large repurchase payouts, (b) with increased frequency, and (c) with lower daily...

We analyze a firm's choice between dividend payments and stock repurchases under heterogeneous beliefs and the subsequent long-term stock return performance of firms adopting the two forms of payout. Firm insiders, owning a certain fraction of its equity, choose between paying out its cash...

We find that institutions with short and long investment horizons have different effects on corporate payout policy. Firms with higher long (short) term institutional holdings are more (less) likely to pay dividends and tend to have larger (smaller) dividend payouts. Although high long-term...

Why do listed firms herd to repurchase shares? Analyzing complete repurchase records from the Chinese stock market from 2005 to 2021, we discover that firms aiming to boost stock prices through repurchasing shares drive the tendency for peers to also make repurchasing announcements. The positive...

I analyze attention-induced stock repurchases. I hypothesize that firms that announce an open market repurchase program of a certain size are likely to follow through to a larger extent if they receive greater investor attention to their repurchase behavior. I test this hypothesis using 10-K and...

Some mutual funds purchase stocks before dividend payments to artificially increase their dividends, which we call "juicing." Funds paid more than twice the dividends implied by their holdings in 7.4% of fund-years examined. Juicing is associated with larger inflows, and is more common among...

We study whether firms increase share repurchases when their shareholders have short-term preferences. We base our analysis on economic theory that establishes that greater transparency about an agent's action increases the agent's career concerns and short-termism. We use a...