"Hot issue" markets, which refer to instances when stocks increase their offering prices to a level greater than average market premiums, have been overlooked in recent academic literature. Thus, this research examines factors which may aid in the prediction of hot issue markets. A sample of...

A great deal of empirical research finds that stocks with low market-to-book (MTB) ratios have outperformed stocks with high MTB ratios. Rhodes-Kropf, Robinson, and Viswanathan (RKRV) (2005) separate the MTB ratio into a mispricing component and a growth options component. We investigate the...

Financial economists seem to believe that takeovers are partly motivated by the desire to improve poorly-performing firms. However, prior empirical evidence in support of this inefficient management hypothesis is rather weak. We provide a detailed reexamination of this hypothesis in a...

While the bulk of the research on the financial performance of mergers and acquisitions has focused on stock returns around the merger announcement, a surprisingly large set of papers has also examined long-run stock returns following acquisitions. We review this literature, concluding that...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that top managers of firms that are investigated for fraud lose their jobs. Fraud scandals plausibly create incentives to change managers, in an attempt to improve the firm's performance, recover lost reputational capital, or limit the firm's exposure to liabilities...

It is often stated that bidders acquire poorly-run targets in order to improve firm performance. This inefficient management hypothesis is frequently tested by examining target stock returns in the years prior to an acquisition. While the hypothesis is commonly assumed in the literature to be...

This paper empirically examines whether the short swing rule (Section 16b of the Securities Exchange Act) deters managers from trading before merger announcements. This rule bars insiders from profiting on round-trip trades within a six month period. It is unlikely to deter insiders from trading...

Prior research documents that acquirers of public targets earn zero or negative announcement period returns, while acquirers of private and subsidiary targets earn positive returns. This finding is clearly important to managers and stockholders of acquirers and targets. We employ a large sample...