The paper examines whether the fund managers in a given investing institution behave in a co-ordinated manner, in terms of their trading around the announcement of a major takeover by a company in which the institution has two or more separate holdings. Our data show that many institutional...

The paper presents new evidence on the contribution to price discovery of the upstairs market. The ‘component share' and ‘information share' measures are used, supplemented by the probability of informed trading (PIN) analysis. Most discovery arises downstairs, consistent with previous...

The cost of executing orders could differ from the cost of trades. We estimate the cost of a fund manager's orders to trade in shares and contracts for differences (CFDs), using data for 2013-15. We compare directly the effective half-spread (EHS) of an order with the EHS that would be inferred...

The paper presents evidence from UK rights issues on the discounts at which large blocks of new shares plus rights are sold. The shares are renounced by the shareholders entitled to them and placed with passive investors at substantial discounts of around 8% to the expected ex-rights midpoint...

We study payout by U.K. listed companies during 1993-2018. Regular dividends remain the dominant channel, but flexible payouts (special dividends and repurchases) have grown, and they make total payout more responsive to earnings. Flexible payouts are used to augment regular dividends: few...

This paper studies the impact of bureaucratic checks on firm value using the revision of the regulations on disciplinary actions of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2015 as a natural experiment. We document a positive and substantial market reaction following this unexpected policy change...

Banks never lend at less than the interbank floating rate, LIBOR. We argue that this must be because it is insufficiently profitable for those which could lend at less than LIBOR to do so and discuss circumstances in which this would be the case. Using data from 1988-91, we show that LIBOR...

Corporate governance research in the context of emerging economies has received increasing attention in recent years. Corporate scandals and executive failures continue despite the growing emphasis on governance reforms around the world and the increasing activism of shareholders, governments...

This paper studies the impact on firm value of tighter checks on bureaucrats' behavior. We use as a natural experiment the revision in 2015 by the Communist Party of China (CPC) of its regulations on disciplinary actions. We document a positive and substantial market reaction following this...