Reviews the literature on economies of scale and scope in savings and loan institutions and uses 1980‐1987 US data to explore the cost effects of simultaneous production of outputs (mortgage loans, other loans and deposits), the impact of size and product‐specific economies of scale....

Outlines previous research on reasons for the many failures of US thrifts and loans during the 1980s, and suggests that crime played a larger part than is generally supposed. Explains the regulatory system set up to deal with failed thrift institutions and analyses all disposals made by the...

Refers to previous research on the effects of poor external audits on agency costs to shareholders and takes the 1991 disciplinary action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Ernst and Young (re the Republic Bank) as an example to examine the effect on its other audit clients and...

Reviews previous research on contrarian investment strategy (i.e. buying “losers” and selling “winners”) and analyses the results of applying the strategy to US stocks 1928‐1992. Explains the methodology and presents the results, which show no statistically significant holding period...

Briefly reviews previous research on the value of investment advisors’ recommendations and presents a study comparing portfolio returns from analysts’ recommendations in the Wall Street Journal’s “Dartboard” contest 1990‐1996, four randomly selected shares and the Dow Jones...

Existing and potential investors are vitally interested in the improvement of their wealth prospects. Receipt of cash, whether in the form of cash dividends or capital gains, represents fulfilment of this expectation. Such fulfilment is only possible when an enterprise registers growth in its...

It is well established in academic literature that self‐tender offers and corporate dividends can be used independently to effectively signal firm value. It is unclear, however, whether these two forms of earnings distributions can be used simultaneously. This paper is an empirical examination...

An examination of insider trading before and after the announcement of Credit Watch placements sheds new light on the study of both bond rating changes and insider trading. This paper utilizes Credit Watch placements classified by 11 indentifiable trigger events for the years 1981‐1990. We...

Summarizes previous research on factors affecting the market value of a firm’s equity and puts forward a mathematical model based on the idea that its investment opportunity set is positively related to reputation, multinationality, size and profitability; and negatively related to leverage...

Summarizes previous valuation models based on accounting information, extends the basic model to include dividends and retained earnings, and develops hypotheses on the relationship between share prices, dividends and earnings for firms with different investment opportunity set (IOS) levels....