The relative merits of dealer versus auction markets have been a subject of significant and sometimes contentious debate. On January 20, 1997, the Securities and Exchange Commission began implementing reforms that would permit the public to compete directly with Nasdaq dealers by submitting...

We analyze the initial listing decisions of IPOs that qualify for New York Stock Exchange listing. We find that IPOs are more likely to list on the exchange where their industry peers are listed. Further, reverse LBOs and carveouts are more likely to choose the NYSE if the firm or their parent...

For NYSE-listed IPOs, limit order submissions and depth relative to volume are unusually low on the first trading day. Initial buy-side liquidity is higher for IPOs with high-quality underwriters, large syndicates, low insider sales, and high premarket demand, while sell-side liquidity is higher...

We study the microstructure of the Pink Sheets and assess the ability of existing theory to capture salient features of this relatively unstructured and unregulated market. Clustering patterns in quotes, quoted spreads, and trade prices indicate that market participants have selected...

We investigate whether the timing of equity sales to exploit market overvaluation may account for the reported poor post-offer stock performance of firms issuing equity. We posit that rights offers, targeted to a firm’s current shareholders, are less likely to be timed to exploit...

This paper chronicles the research that led to the conclusion that Nasdaq marketmakers implicitly colluded to maintain supracompetitive spreads (Christie and Schultz, 1994). The paper provides a brief description of the differences between a dealer and an auction market, and highlights the...

Signaling and agency cost theories of dividend policy predict that omissions will produce a larger average decline in equity values than will reductions of less than 100 percent. However, this paper identifies a U-shaped relation between announcement day risk-adjusted excess returns and the...