Sequential Sales,Learning, and Cascades

When IPO shares are sold sequentially, later potential investors can learn from the purchasing decisions of earlier investors. This can lead rapidly to “cascades” in which subsequent investors optimally ignore their private information and imitate earlier investors. Although rationing in this situation gives rise to a winner's curse, it is irrelevant. The model predicts that: (1) Offerings succeed or fail rapidly. (2) Demand can be so elastic that even risk-neutral issuers underprice to completely avoid failure. (3) Issuers with good inside information can price their shares so high that they sometimes fail. (4) An underwriter may want to reduce the communication among investors by spreading the selling effort over a more segmented market.     

PAY EQUITY AND COMPARABLE WORTH

An important and emerging public policy consideration… generally called equal pay for comparable worth…has received great attention from those who influence or report public policy initiatives. The comparable worth movement is directed at pay equity issues, primarily between men and women. The source of controversy surrounding comparable worth concerns the mechanism for determining wages in the economy…either an unrestricted market process or a subjective valuation process by designated "pay equity experts." Although the pay and allocation mechanisms and their side effects are controversial, other important questions concern the actual method of equity determination to be used in implementing comparable worth. This paper analyzes, from a general public policy perspective, many of the issues and much of the evidence surrounding comparable worth initiatives.     

EFFECTS OF CHINESE CURRENCY REVALUATION ON WORLD FIBER MARKETS

A partial equilibrium model is used to analyze effects of Chinese currency revaluation on world fiber markets. Unique characteristics of this model include incorporation of a regional supply response of cotton, substitutability between cotton and manmade fibers, and linkage between raw fiber and textile sectors. Simulation results show renminbi revaluation is likely to increase China's fiber imports and lower domestic cotton prices. Internationally, the world cotton price, polyester price, and cotton trade are expected to increase. A scenario modeling currency devaluation in China is run to test the stability of the model and ascertain its accordance with economic theory . ( JEL F17, F42, F47, O2)     

The Costs of Bankruptcy: Chapter 7 Liquidation versus Chapter 11 Reorganization

Our paper explores a comprehensive sample of small and large corporate bankruptcies in Arizona and New York from 1995 to 2001. Bankruptcy costs are very heterogeneous and sensitive to the measurement method used. We find that Chapter 7 liquidations appear to be no faster or cheaper (in terms of direct expense) than Chapter 11 reorganizations. However, Chapter 11 seems to preserve assets better, thereby allowing creditors to recover relatively more. Our paper also provides a large number of further empirical regularities.     

The Optimal Concentration of Creditors

Our model assumes that creditors need to expend resources to collect on claims. Consequently, because diffuse creditors suffer from mutual free‐riding ( Holmstrom (1982) ), they fare worse than concentrated creditors (e.g., a house bank). The model predicts that measures of debt concentration relate positively to creditors' (aggregate) debt collection expenditures and positively to management's chosen expenditures to resist paying. However, collection activity is purely redistributive, so social waste is larger when creditors are concentrated. If borrower quality is not known, the best firms choose the most concentrated creditors and pay higher expected yields.     

IS TIGHTER FISCAL POLICY EXPANSIONARY UNDER FISCAL DOMINANCE?: HYPERCROWDING OUT IN LATIN AMERICA

Hypercrowding out occurs when fiscally dominated governments' domestic credit demands are so intrusive to a nation's financial system that a move toward fiscal surplus lowers interest rates and increases growth. We sample nine Latin American countries to test for these relationships. The impulse‐response results of vector error correction models, six nations test positive for these two connections, suggesting market concern despite recent efforts toward fiscal balance. (JEL E430, E620, O230, O540)     

Seasoned Offerings,Imitation Costs,and the Underpricing of Initial Public Offerings

This paper presents a signalling model in which high-quality firms underprice at the initial public offering (IPO) in order to obtain a higher price at a seasoned offering. The main assumptions are that low-quality firms must invest in imitation expenses to appear to be high-quality firms, and that with some probability this imitation is discovered between offerings. Underpricing by high-quality firms at the IPO can then add sufficient signalling costs to these imitation expenses to induce low-quality firms to reveal their quality voluntarily. The model is consistent with several documented empirical regularities and offers new testable implications. In addition, the paper provides empirical evidence that many firms raise substantial amounts of additional equity capital in the years after their IPO.