The incidence of deposit taxes has been connected to interesting questions in the theory of financial intermediation. Some researchers have found evidence supporting the notion that the deposits tax is borne by bank borrowers and that, therefore, bank loans are quot;unique.quot; Other studies...

This paper uses data on current volume and contracts approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to document the history of approvals, launches, and successes of all contracts in U. S. futures and futures options markets. Over 1,100 futures and options contracts have been approved and...

We show that although forecasts of independent analysts are less accurate ex post, they yield forecast errors that are more strongly associated with abnormal stock returns. This suggests that forecasts of independent analysts are superior to those of nonindependent analysts in representing ex...

Gu and Xue (this issue) study the disciplining effect of independent analysts on the accuracy and forecast relevance of the forecasts of non-independent analysts. One of the intriguing results is that while independent analysts issue inferior forecasts, their presence appears to reduce the...

We examine whether conflicts of interest with investment banking and brokerage induce sell-side analysts to issue optimistic stock recommendations and, if so, whether investors are misled by such biases. Using quantitative measures of potential conflicts constructed from revenue breakdowns of...

We examine the impact of Regulation Fair Disclosure (RFD) on first-forecast horizon of analysts' earnings forecasts. The first-forecast horizon is computed as the number of calendar days between the issue of the analysts' first earnings forecast for a quarter and the fiscal quarter-end date. We...

This article is the Belgian report concerning rating agencies to the 2006 Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law to be held in Utrecht. After describing credit rating practices in Belgium, the report considers the extent to which Belgian regulation requires, or relies upon,...

This article seeks to contribute to the discussion concerning the adequacy of the legal responses to conflicts of interest in institutional asset management. After defining the legal concept of a conflict of interest in general, the insights of economic theory, especially agency theory, are...

This paper examines how the quality of stock analysts' forecasts is related to conflicts of interest from investment banking and brokerage. We consider four aspects of forecast quality: accuracy, bias and frequency of revision of quarterly earnings forecasts, and relative optimism in long-term...

This study investigates analysts' potential conflicts of interest due to the relationship between research and trading departments within the same brokerage firm. We find evidence consistent with the presence of information leakage and opportunistic behavior before analysts revise their...