With time-varying adverse selection in the market for new equity issues, firms will prefer to issue equity when the market is most informed about the quality of the firm. This implies that equity issues tend to follow credible information releases. In addition, if the asymmetry in information...

How public pension plan assets should be invested is an important but unsettled question. Some observers endorse the standard practice of investing heavily in higher yielding but riskier equities, reasoning that the higher average returns will reduce future required tax receipts and also help to...

This paper develops a formal model of the effect of time-varying asymmetric information on the timing and pricing of equity issues when managers are better informed than outside investors. We assume that as time passes, the adverse selection problem becomes more severe as more managers receive a...

The link between the real and financial decisions of firms has been studied for many years, yet it remains poorly understood. Neoclassical investment theories such as Tobin's q posit a direct, simple link between the market's valuation of the firm and investment decisions: firms invest when the...

Toxic waste refers to the riskiest derivative structures arising from collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs). We use simulations to predict how this risk would manifest itself in various interest rate environments. We also look for evidence on the total dollar value of these securities, who...

Early cash-in-advance models have the feature that the cash-in-advance constraint always binds, implying that the velocity of money is constant. Lucas (1984) and Svensson (1985) propose a change in information structure that potentially allows velocity to vary. By calibrating a version of these...

In this paper we explore the conjecture that the periodic episodes of high prices and constrained supply in the property- casualty industry are the result of temporary capital shortages. We do this by looking for increases in activities aimed at increasing capital at these times: dividend cuts,...

In this paper, we focus on how the presence of background risks - from sources such as labour and entrepreneurial income - influences portfolio allocations. This interaction is explored in a theoretical model that is calibrated using cross-sectional data from a variety of sources. The model is...

When shareholders have different plans to sell their shares, they will, in general, have different preferences concerning the firm's decision to pay out cash using dividends or share repurchase. We illustrate these different preferences and explore a model of payout policy that highlights the...

This paper presents an information-theoretic, infinite horizon model of the equity issue decision. The model's predictions about stock price behavior and issue timing explain most of the stylized facts in the empirical literature: (a) equity issues on average are preceded by an abnormal positive...