This dissertation contains two essays that use empirical techniques to shed light on open questions in the asset pricing literature. In the first essay, I investigate whether foreign institutional investors affect stock liquidity in domestic equity markets. The evidence indicates that stocks...

This dissertation addresses issues in corporate finance. Part I examines the litigationenvironment of a firm and its impact on financial policy. Chapter 1 discusses prior research,including theory and empirical results, related to firm performance, financial policy, andlitigation. It provides...

This dissertation examines issues in banking and the financing of corporate investment. The first chapter investigates the impact of changes in a bank's health on the investment behavior of its current borrowers for a panel of U.S. firms. I find that, after controlling for aggregate credit...

This paper investigates the dynamic relation between net individual investor trading and short-horizon returns for a large cross-section of NYSE stocks. The evidence indicates that individuals tend to buy stocks following declines in the previous month and sell following price increases. We...