Using aggregate data from national accounts, we study whether strengthening and harmonizing securities regulation across the European Union increases household equity ownership. We find a significant increase in the proportion of liquid assets invested in equity, both when a household's own...

Employing the SEC Tick Size Pilot Program that increases the minimum trading unit of a set of randomly selected small-capitalization stocks, we examine whether and how an exogenous change in stock liquidity affects corporate voluntary disclosure. Using difference-in-differences analyses with...

Most international stock exchanges distinguish solely between domestic and foreign issuers, whereas in Germany, issuers can choose between two market segments with diverse transparency levels: the Prime Standard and Non-Prime Standard segment. Transparency requirements for the Non-Prime Standard...

We analyze a comprehensive sample of more than 10,000 U.S. OTC stocks. We first show that the OTC market is a large, diverse, and dynamic trading environment with a rich set of regulatory and disclosure regimes, comprising venue rules and state laws beyond SEC regulation. We then exploit this...

Studying a comprehensive sample of stocks from the U.S. OTC market, we show that this market is a large and diverse trading environment with a rich set of regulatory and disclosure regimes, comprising venue rules and state laws beyond SEC regulation. We exploit this institutional richness to...

This paper reviews the literature examining how costs of monitoring for, acquiring, and analyzing firm disclosures – collectively, “disclosure processing costs” – affect investor information choices, trades, and market outcomes. The existence of disclosure processing costs means that...

This paper examines how cooperation between national securities regulators affects equity market liquidity, using the International Organization of Securities Commissions' (IOSCO's) Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU) as a shock to cooperation. The MMoU was set up to protect...

Short sellers assist in impounding negative news more quickly into stock prices and improve price informativeness. However, there is a lack of consistent evidence about whether short sellers trade predominantly in anticipation of, or in response to, a public information release. To shed light on...

China's stock market has gone through major structural changes since its inception in early 1990s. In this survey article, we review the empirical literature that document these important structural changes and published in 15 leading accounting and finance journals from 1998 to 2013. In...

We use the 2007 acquisition of Dow Jones & Co. by News Corporation to study whether the perception of a news source's political affiliation affects its credibility and financial market impact. Following 2007, the price of Republican- (Democrat-) aligned stocks becomes less sensitive to positive...