In this short note we respond to the argument advanced by Baker, Taliaferro, and Wurgler (2006) that our criticism of the market timing literature is simply a reinterpretation of Stambaugh's (1999) small sample bias. We show analytically how structural breaks in an economic time-series may...

This note supplements our article, quot;The Academic Job Market in Finance: A Rookie's Guidequot; (Butler and Crack, 2005). Here we provide additional and updated job-seeking advice to rookies and lightly-seasoned academic job seekers in academic finance

Using a sample of 86 counties, we examine the cross-sectional determinants of sovereign credit ratings around the world. We find that the quality of legal and political institutions of a country plays a vital role in determining sovereign credit ratings. A one standard deviation increase in our...

This is a guide for newly minted Ph.D.'s entering the academic finance job market for the first time. The institutional knowledge of how the job market works is lost when students graduate, and advisors are often too busy or too removed from the process to give the finely detailed advice that...

An increase in the cost of short selling should increase the bearish information content of short interest announcements by driving relatively uninformed short sellers out of the market (Diamond and Verrecchia, 1987). We extend the Diamond and Verrecchia model to include short selling against...

This paper shows that, contrary to existing evidence, corporate managers cannot successfully time the maturity of their debt issues to reduce their cost of capital. Our results indicate that the negative correlation between future excess long-term bond returns and the ratio of long-term debt...

This paper presents empirical evidence that stock market liquidity is an important determinant of the cost of raising external capital. Because the role of an investment banking syndicate in a public security offering is analogous to that of a block trader, investment banks should charge lower...

This paper provides a rational explanation for the apparent ability of managers to successfully time the maturity of their debt issues. We show that a structural break in excess bond returns during the early 1980s generates a spurious correlation between the fraction of long-term debt in total...

Which journal articles have the most impact on finance research? Which journals dominate finance research in the 1990s? We answer these and similar questions using a comprehensive sample of journals, an extensive time period, and a new ranking method that avoids problems inherent in the existing...

When calling its convertible bonds, a company must typically give bondholders a notice period of about 30 days to decide whether to convert the bonds. This notice period affects the optimal call policy for convertible bonds. After accounting for the notice period, convertible bonds in our sample...