This paper is the first to look at the long-run (30-year) behavior of underwriting spreads in the markets for corporate equity and debt. Specifically, we analyze the determinants of underwriting spreads on corporate bond issues, secondary equity offerings and initial public offerings over the...

The paper evaluates the ability of asset pricing models that do not use consumption data, and models that use consumption data as a proxy for true consumption, to explain the time-series and cross-sectional variation of expected returns of portfolios of stocks. Although some parameter...

Futures exchanges raise margins in environments characterized by recent substantial increases in futures price volatility, and they raise margins in contracts that have recently shown the largest volatility increase. Volatility then tends to fall. This reduction is smaller - especially the...