This paper analyzes the use and terms of quot;share-issue privatizations (SIPs)quot; during the period 1961-1994. We present a theory of SIPs implying their terms are designed to build the political support necessary to privatize a state-owned enterprise (SOE). We then investigate the extent to...

We find that for a sample of call options on stocks with low returns in the prior year, the implied volatilities increase as the year-end approaches. On the other hand, we do not detect an increase in the volatilities implied from the put options on the same stocks over the same dates. This is...

We model the risk of setting the required fixed-offer price in an IPO given initial uncertainty about value, as well as costs of over and underpricing. Assuming that the goal of issuers in bookbuilt IPOs is to maximize net offering proceeds, our analysis indicates that their optimal strategy is...

Much of the early research on contrarian performance adjusts for risk using a Jensen's alpha estimated with in-sample returns in either real time or event time. The use of in-sample returns means that beta is estimated with the same observation period returns it is intended to risk adjust. This...

Initial uncertainty about the value of IPOs combined with costs of over and underpricing make it risky to set fixed-offer prices. Assuming issuers seek to maximize proceeds net of the spread, we show it is optimal for book-building underwriters and best-efforts issuers to set the fixed-offer...