We use the 2016 U.S. SEC tick size pilot to examine the effects of an increase in the minimum price variation on limit order book liquidity in NASDAQ-listed stocks on the NASDAQ exchange. For treatment stocks with an average pre-pilot quoted spread less than $0.05, the tick size increase is...

We find that the bans on covered short sales, implemented in several countries during the financial crisis of 2008-09 improved market liquidity or at least had a neutral impact; a result we argue could be expected in theory, given a simple variation on the Diamond-Verrechia (1987) model. The...

This study examines the cross-sectional impact of the 2008 short sale ban on the returns of U.S. financial stocks. Motivated by the large cross-sectional variation in the extent to which banned stocks suffer an illiquidity shock, we hypothesize that stocks with larger liquidity declines are...

We investigate possible reasons for voluntary delistings by U.S. firms from the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 1982 to 2005. We find that the small shareholder base, as measured by low turnover, for U.S. stocks in Japan helps to explain the voluntary foreign delistings. This finding is consistent,...

This paper studies how the Baker, Bloom and Davis (2013) new measure capturing economic policy uncertainty (EPU) is related to stock market performance in the United States. We use a variety of methods to estimate different specifications. We find that an increase in the EPU index negatively...

In this paper, I identify a novel channel through which political beliefs affect investor behavior. Instead of considering differences of opinion between Republicans and Democrats, I analyze nonpartisan evaluations of the executive using Gallup's presidential approval ratings. I find that large...

This paper investigates how heterogeneous sentiments and perspectives expressed in public online media about the abolition of the Chinese presidential term limit in 2018 may have caused a divergence in investor behavior between the U.S. and China. We document that sentiments expressed in social...

This paper investigates a largely overlooked segment of U.S. equity markets, listed penny stocks. We find that: (i) the average percentage of short interest ratio of listed penny stocks is 14% which is not significantly different from that of NYSE- and NASDAQ-listed stocks ranging from 10% to...

We examine short selling of equity exchange traded funds (ETFs) using the 2008 short-sale ban. Contrasting the previously documented contractions in bearish strategies during the ban, we find a significant increase in short sales of the largest, most liquid ETF, the S&P 500 Spider. We offer...

This paper studies a recent tick size reduction in the U.S. Treasury securities market and identifies its effects on the market's liquidity and price efficiency. Employing difference-indifference regressions, we find that the bid-ask spread narrows significantly after the change, even for large...