We examine the effect of background risk on competitive insurance markets with moral hazard. If policy-holders have non-negative prudence, then background risk does not decrease effort and, when effort increases, expands the set of feasible policies. However, the effect of background risk on...

Standard models of adverse selection in insurance markets assume policyholders know their loss distributions. This study examines the nature of equilibrium and the equilibrium value of information in competitive insurance markets where consumers lack complete information regarding their loss...

The analysis considers an insurance market with adverse selection where individuals' loss distributions may differ with respect to both the frequency and severity of loss. We show that the combination of deductibles and coinsurance can be used to sort rationed policyholders. Because of their...

We examine a market with observably heterogeneous risks and a government sponsored guaranty fund and consider whether it is optimal to form a single insurer or separate insurers for each consumer type. Given the economic environment, pooling never dominates the formation of separate insurance...

Using actual transaction data from the Taiwanese foreign exchange traditional brokered market, we show that the stealth-trading hypothesis does not hold in this market. Large-size trades contribute the most to price change. Examining the role of depth and late day trades, we conclude that this...

Using eight measures of liquidity, and addressing the potential endogeneity of initial returns, we find underpricing generally increases the secondary market liquidity of IPOs over the first year of trading, irrespective of the horizon over which liquidity is measured. For two model...

"We investigate the motives for executives to exercise executive stock options on the options' vesting date versus a later early exercise. We find that executives frequently exercise on the vesting date, executives with a greater need for portfolio diversification and riskier underlying stocks...

"The previous literature documents that insurance initial public offerings (IPOs) are less underpriced than those of noninsurance firms. This difference is usually attributed to lower information asymmetry for regulated firms. However, we find that once one controls for the file price adjustment...

We examine the effect on expected flotation costs of including co-managers in the underwriting syndicate. We consider five components of SEO flotation costs: announcement returns, underpricing, the probability of withdrawals, offering delays, and underwriting spreads. The results show that the...