Transaction Costs and Price Volatility: New Evidence from the Tokyo Stock Exchange

We investigate the volatility impacts of the full commission deregulation in Japan in October 1999, and find that the deregulation overall tends to significantly increase price volatility in the Japanese equity market, using alternative model specifications and control variables. This finding contrasts with previous evidence that implies a positive relation between transaction costs and price volatility, while consistent from the converse with the hypothesis proposed by Stiglitz (1989) and Summers and Summers (1989). Our results suggest that imposing higher transaction costs might still be a feasible policy tool for stabilizing the market by curbing short-term noise trading.

Takeover motives in a weak regulatory environment surrounding a market shock: a case study of New Zealand with a comparison of Gondhalekar and Bhagwat’s (2003) US findings

We examine the motives for takeovers in New Zealand surrounding the 1987 stock market crash and compare with the US findings of Gondhalekar and Bhagwat (2003). There are a number of structural differences between the New Zealand and US markets that could impact on merger motives. Compared with the US, New Zealand is a small capital market; with weak takeover regulation and a prolonged aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash. Consistent with US research, we find evidence of synergy and hubris motivations in New Zealand takeovers although we find the synergy motivation is stronger. Contrary to expectations we find no evidence of agency motivated takeovers.

Price reversals versus price continuations: the transitory price effects of futures trading extension on the underlying stock market

This paper examines the transitory price effects of index futures trading extension on the underlying stock market. Based on the model formulation of George and Hwang (1995) and Amihud and Mendelson (1987) and using the Hong Kong data, we find that the extension of futures trading hour helps to reduce the opening pricing errors and change the correlations between daytime and overnight stock returns. Our finding adds to the literature that the trading behavior of derivatives has a significant influence on the transitory price changes of the underlying cash products.

Does Bancassurance Reduce the Price of Financial Service Products?

I assess the impact of bancassurance on the price of retail financial services. I find that service fees in a product bundle increase less than proportionally to the number of services; that an increase in the number of clients in each product bundle market reduces fees by 1.5%; that the degree of competition in the markets of each bundle also reduces fees; that premium products have higher average costs; and finally, that cross-holdings reduce prices by about 5% and bancassurance reduces prices by just over 6%. The price reduction declines if both strategies are combined.

School Quality, House Prices and Liquidity

This paper develops an empirical framework for taking into account the effects of endogenous liquidity on price capitalization estimates. Changes in school attendance zones in the East Baton Rouge Parish public school district provide a natural experiment for studying how changes in school characteristics affect house prices and liquidity. House price and selling time, or liquidity, are simultaneously determined in search markets. The empirical model exploits variation in the surrounding neighborhood market conditions pertinent to each house to identify the system of price and liquidity equations. The estimates are consistent with search-market theory in that liquidity absorbs part of the capitalization of school quality.

The Impact of Dual Agency

In 1984, the State of Hawaii’s legislature enacted a law making it mandatory for real estate agents engaged in dual agency relationships (i.e., when the seller’s and the buyer’s agents are employed by the same real estate firm) to disclose this fact to both parties in writing. The assumption was that the dual agency relation was damaging to the seller. This study analyzes the effect of disclosed and undisclosed dual agency, and the impact of the legislation, using data prior to and after the legislation (approximately 2,000 residential sales in each period). To account for property characteristics, hedonic models for the log of sale price and for the log of days on market are estimated in each period. Our empirical analysis suggests that dual agency significantly reduced the sales price, but the influence was much smaller after the legislation (8.0 versus 1.4%). In addition, dual agency significantly decreased the time on market by approximately 8.5% pre-legislation and 8.1% post-legislation, although the influence was much stronger for lower priced residences. These results are confirmed using a seemingly unrelated regression model.

An empirical assessment of the premium associated with meeting or beating both time-series earnings expectations and analysts’ forecasts

Recent research provides evidence of a market premium accruing to firms that meet or beat analysts’ forecasts. We find similar results for our sample of firms. However, we also find a market premium for firms that meet or beat time-series forecasts, and that the highest market premium accrued to firms that meet or beat both analysts’ and time-series forecasts. These findings are supported by assessments of future financial performance over the next two subsequent years. Our findings are consistent with the notion that when time-series benchmark is used in conjunction with analysts’ forecasts, investors obtain a more reliable (i.e., less noisy) signal regarding whether firms have actually met or beaten market expectations.

The Effect of Reputation and Competition on the Advice of Real Estate Agents

We study a two-period bargaining game where buyers and sellers employ real estate agents to help them determine the sales price of a house. We find that agents are less likely to provide aggressive bargaining advice to their client when they receive percentage commissions and when they work for the buyer. In addition, we find that agents are less likely to suggest aggressive bargaining strategies when there is little market competition, the gains to trade are large, in markets where housing values appreciate slowly, and when dual agency is permitted. More importantly, we show that an agent is more likely to bargain aggressively and capture a portion of the gains to trade for a client when the house’s sales price is closely related to the agent’s reputation and future business (referrals).

Specification analysis of corporate equity financing decision: a conditional residual approach

This article revisits the debate on the nature of private placements by specifying that informed insiders make trading decisions in the secondary market and equity issuance decision in the primary equity market (Lee and Wu (2008)). This article uses conditional residuals from the insider trading regression (abnormal insider trades) and conditional residuals from equity financing choice regression (unexpected equity financing choice) to measure private information. An important advantage of conditional correlation coefficient approach over the two-stage approach (Lee and Wu 2008) in testing the presence of asymmetric information is that the former is bounded by −1 and 1 and thus permits cross-sectional comparisons the relatedness between abnormal insider trades and unexpected equity financing choice.

Valuing corporate securities: some effects of bond indenture provisions—a correction

This paper identifies and corrects a typographical error in Black and Cox (J Finance 31:351–367, 1976). While the typographical error is seemingly trivial, the magnitude of the pricing error that it generates can be substantial.

Regional Housing Prices in the USA: An Empirical Investigation of Nonlinearity

Existing literature on housing prices is predominantly in a linear framework, and an important question that has not been addressed is whether housing prices exhibit nonlinearity. We examine Smooth Transition Autoregressive (STAR) model based nonlinear properties of housing prices over the 1969–2004 period for the entire US and the four regions. Our main findings are (1) housing price for the entire US and all regions except for the Midwest show non-linearity, (2) the dynamic properties implied by the nonlinear estimation explain the typical patterns that have characterized each housing market, and (3) results of Granger causality tests look more plausible in the nonlinear framework where we find stronger evidence of Granger causality from housing price to employment and also from mortgage rates to housing price.

On the role of market insurance in a dynamic model

Durables like cars or houses are a substantial component in the balance sheets of households. These durables are exposed to risk and can be insured in the market. We build a dynamic model in which agents have three possibilities to cope with the risk exposure of the durable stock: (i) purchase of market insurance, (ii) buffer-stock saving of the riskless asset or (iii) adjustment of the durable stock. We calibrate our model to the US economy and find a small role for market insurance.

Neutral Property Taxation Under Uncertainty

In a framework where no uncertainty arises, Arnott (J Publ Econ Theor 7:27–50, 2005) investigates a neutral property taxation policy that will not affect a landowner’s choices of capital intensity and timing of development. We investigate the same issue, but allow rents on structures to be stochastic over time. We assume that a regulator implements taxation on capital, vacant land, and post-development property so as to expropriate a certain ratio of pre-tax site value as well as to achieve neutrality. We find that the optimal taxation policy is to tax capital and subsidize properties before and after development. We also investigate how this optimal policy changes in response to changes in several exogenous forces related to demand and supply conditions of the real estate market.

Fundamental Real Estate Prices: An Empirical Estimation with International Data

We propose two alternative models to estimate fundamental prices on real estate markets. The first model is based on a no-arbitrage condition between renting and buying. The second model interprets the period costs as the result of market equilibrium between housing demand and supply. We estimate both models for the USA, the UK, Japan, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. We find that observed prices deviate substantially and for long periods from their estimated fundamental values. However, we find some evidence that, in the long-run, actual prices tend to return to their fundamental values progressively. This result is due to both impulse–response functions and forecast analyses. In particular, we find that using the fundamental price significantly increases the accuracy of out-of-sample long-term forecasts of the price.

Domino Effects Within a Housing Market: The Transmission of House Price Changes Across Quality Tiers

We argue that shocks to a housing market are transmitted through the hierarchy of quality tiers within a housing market. The result is the prediction of waves of house price changes accompanied by changes in transaction volume. Our study is related to existing models of spatial ripple effects across housing markets. The data are from the Hong Kong housing market. The findings from Granger causality tests strongly support the argument that domino effects within a single housing market occur in response to external shocks.

Premium setting and bank behavior in a voluntary deposit insurance scheme

This study analyzes the effect of premium rates on banks’ incentives to join a deposit insurance scheme and their incentives to invest in risky projects under a voluntary deposit insurance scheme. We find that in order to maximize social welfare, the insurance agency must either set the premium rate to be low so as to attract all banks to join the insurance scheme, or not to have the deposit insurance at all. However, the low premium rate in the voluntary scheme does not balance the budget of the deposit insurance. We also show that in the compulsory deposit insurance scheme, however, it is possible to impose an optimal premium rate that can balance the insurance agency’s budget and achieve the highest social welfare. The results also present the dominance of the compulsory scheme over the voluntary scheme in terms of maximizing social welfare and balancing the budget.

Firm diversification and earnings management: evidence from seasoned equity offerings

Popular press suggests that diversified firms are more aggressive in managing earnings than non-diversified firms. We examine this claim in the seasoned equity offering (SEO) setting, where firms have been shown to have the incentive to manage earnings upwards. Using the cross-sectional modified Jones [(1991) J Accounting Res 29:193–228] model to measure discretionary current accruals, we find that discretionary current accruals are higher among diversified firms than in non-diversified ones. Our evidence is consistent with the view that the extent of firm diversification is directly related to the degree of earnings management. We further show that diversified issuers with high discretionary accruals underperformed other SEO firms.

Not all call auctions are created equal: evidence from Hong Kong

On 25 March 2002, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (HKEx) introduced an opening call auction. This trading mechanism is designed to facilitate price discovery in the presence of asymmetric information at the market open, increasing opening price efficiency. The design of the HKEx differs significantly from opening auctions in other markets. Contrary to previous research, the results indicate a decrease in market quality following the introduction of the opening call auction. This decline is largest in the less actively traded stocks.

Shareholder wealth gains through better corporate governance—The case of European LBO-transactions

We examine shareholder wealth effects in a heterogeneous sample of 115 European leveraged going private transactions from 1997 to 2005. Average abnormal returns as reaction to the LBO announcement amount to 24.20%. In cross-sectional regressions, we find that these value gains can largely be attributed to differences in corporate governance: on a macro level, abnormal returns for pre-LBO shareholders are larger in countries with a poor protection of minority shareholders. On a firm level, companies with a high pre-LBO free float and comparatively weak monitoring by shareholders tend to show high abnormal returns. Furthermore, companies that are undervalued with respect to an industry peer-group exhibit higher announcement returns, indicating that agency conflicts and/or market inefficiencies can serve as an explanation.

Securities Transaction Tax and Market Efficiency: Evidence from the Japanese Experience

This study examines the effect of transaction costs on the time series behavior of stock returns over a period surrounding the April 1989 changes in tax rates on securities transactions and capital gains in Japan. We find significant decreases in estimates of the first-order autocorrelation in returns for Japanese stocks listed in Japan, but no changes for Japanese stocks dually listed in the United States as American Depository Receipts (ADRs), which were not subject to the tax law change. We also find lower price basis between the ADRs and their underlying Japanese stocks. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a reduction in transaction costs improves the efficiency of the price discovery process.