To prevent firms from manipulating prices, U.S. regulators set price ceilings for open-market share repurchases. We find that market structure reforms in the 1990s and 2000s dramatically increased share repurchases because they relaxed constraints that prevent firms from competing with other...

To prevent firms from manipulating prices, U.S. regulators set price ceilings for open-market share repurchases. We find that market structure reforms in the 1990s and 2000s dramatically increased share repurchases because they relaxed constraints that prevent firms from competing with other...

We find that investment responds more sensitively to a firm's Tobin's q when its share price is more discrete. Low-price U.S. stocks exhibit higher investment-q sensitivity, but this pattern disappears in countries whose tick sizes increase with share prices. Using Tick Size Pilot Program as a...

Financial regulations and clientele segmentation explain the proliferation of order types on stock exchanges. Plain market and limit orders lose money, indicating that informed traders use complex orders. Fifty-seven percent of trading volume comes from non-routable orders, which are designed to...

Financial regulations and clientele segmentation explain the proliferation of order types on stock exchanges. Plain market and limit orders lose money, indicating that informed traders use complex orders. Fifty-seven percent of trading volume comes from non-routable orders, which are designed to...

This paper provides a unified explanation for the existence, time-series variation, and recent boom of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). We begin by documenting four empirical patterns regarding U.S. SPACs: (1) SPAC issuance boomed in 2007 prior to the Global Financial Crisis and...

Direct listing (DL) decouples capital raising from going public and bypasses underwriters. Theory and evidence from U.S. and U.K. markets show that (1) DL and IPO markets attract different types of firms. DL innovation caters to later-stage firms’ demand for public trading. (2) When adverse...