Regulations are often introduced and reformed in response to unanticipated changes in market forces. In late 1973, for example, OPEC quadrupled the world price of oil and U.S. policy makers responded by imposing oil price regulation. Such events pose a fundamental problem of interpretation for...

We argue that management sells assets when doing so provides the cheapest funds to pursue its objectives rather than for operating efficiency reasons alone. This hypothesis suggests that (1) firms selling assets have high leverage and/or poor performance, (2) a successful asset sale is good news...