"We analyze the effect of daily stock and bond abnormal returns around spin-off announcements. Over a three-day event window, we find statistically significant abnormal returns of 3.07% for stocks and 0.11% for straight bonds. Both stock and bond abnormal returns are higher for firms with lower...

Risk perceptions of individual investors are studied by asking experimental questions to 2226 members of a consumer panel. Their responses are analyzed in order to find which risk measures they implicitly use. We find that most investors implicitly use more than one risk measure. For those...

We study wealth effects for a sample of 156 spin-offs from 15 different European countries that were announced between January 1987 and September 2000. The cumulative average abnormal return over the three-day event window is 2.62%. This number increases to 2.66% for the subsequently completed...

We survey institutional investors about their role in capital structure decisions and views on capital structure theories. Over 82% of investors believe they influence corporate capital structure decisions, especially for smaller, younger, and more financially constrained firms. Unlike corporate...

We survey individuals on their credit card usage. Contrary to popular press, most credit card holders use credit cards in a responsible manner. They tend to use credit cards for transaction convenience and pay little interest costs. Only a minor subset of people uses credit cards to access...

Do happy people predict future risk and return differently from unhappy people, or do individuals rely only on economic facts? We survey investors on their subjective sentiment-creating factors, return and risk expectations, and investment plans. We find that non-economic factors systematically...

We study the relationship between stock market return expectations and risk aversion of individuals and test whether the joint effects arising from the interaction of these two variables affect investment decisions. Using data from the Dutch National Bank Household Survey, we find that risk...

We find that human perception contradicts the market efficiency assertions that high return is accompanied by high risk and that past returns do not affect future prices. A survey of investors reveals that the last week realized returns are positively correlated with perceived returns and...

This paper reviews the literature on the factors that influence the wealth effects associated with the announcements of corporate spin-offs. We use meta-analysis to summarize the findings of 26 event studies on spin-off announcements. We find a significantly positive average abnormal return of...