We find direct evidence that institutions increase round-trip stock trades, increase average commissions per share, and pay unusually high commissions on some trades in order to send abnormally high commissions to the lead underwriters of profitable initial public offerings (IPOs). These excess...

In this paper, we determine whether each bid (ask) quote reflects the trading interest of the specialist, limit order traders, or both for a sample of NYSE stocks in 1991. We then compare Nasdaq spreads with NYSE spreads that reflect the trading interest of the specialist. Our empirical results...

Prior research concludes that option introductions improve the average liquidity of the underlying stocks. We develop an improved, generalizable test to assess whether market quality changes occur on or near an event date. Applying this method to option listing events, we conclude that options...