The world-wide consolidation in the electronic trading industry has provided evidence that small exchanges and trading portals need to deliver more than sophisticated technology, streaming quotes and market data. In order to deliver value and survive, they need to provide liquidity. Noteworthy...

Beginning in the early 1980's, average tuition and fees for higher education institutions in the United States experienced two decades of unprecedented growth. Over the 10-year period ending in 2003-2004, average tuition and fees rose 47 percent at public four-year colleges and universities and...

This thesis consists of three essays on various topics in Financial Economics. Underwriter analysts issue recommendations that are on average more favorable than recommendations of other analysts. In Chapter 1, I investigate whether this bias matters for returns, and whether it matters for...

Within the Integrated Defense Systems of The Boeing Company, aftermarket support of military aircraft serves as an increasingly large source of revenue. One of the newest contracts between Boeing and the U.S. Government created such a supply partnership at the Army Rotorcraft Repair Depot in...

Ticks, the second-to-second trades and quotes of a market, might be considered the atoms of finance. They represent the basic, defining transactions that represent an asset in the market. Almost all financial concepts, such as returns or risk, are essentially abstractions from tick data. Like...

This thesis consists of three empirical essays on corporate bonds, examining the role of both credit risk and liquidity. In the first chapter, I test the ability of structural models of default to price corporate bonds in the cross-section. I find that the Black-Cox model can explain 45% of the...

The first part of the thesis studies the impact of liquidity crashes on asset prices. In financial markets, liquidity could have large downward jumps. The thesis proposes a dynamic model where investors face the risk of potential liquidity crises. We find that investors choose optimal portfolios...

(cont.) Slow information diffusion can cause return momentum. Institutions are thought to be more informed than individuals, and should eliminate return predictability. However, higher institutional ownership is associated with more momentum. Therefore, institutions either herd on returns or can...

Much of the innovation literature focuses exclusively on product-oriented companies. While scholars have begun researching innovation in service companies, the field of service innovation remains undeveloped and relatively immature. This paper begins with a summary of the various differences...

(cont.) provides explanations as to when and how incorporating them into advertising deals can be profitable. We argue that using these pricing models appropriately can give both the publisher and the advertiser proper incentives to make non-contractible efforts that may improve the...