The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Free Cash Flow, Shareholder Value, and the Undistributed Profits Tax of 1936 and 1937
Published: 12/01/1994 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1994.tb04779.x
WILLIAM G. CHRISTIE, VIKRAM NANDA
In 1936, the Federal Government unexpectedly imposed a tax on undistributed corporate profits. Despite the direct costs of the tax, its announcement produced a positive revaluation of corporate equity, particularly among lower‐payout firms. We interpret this as evidence of a divergence between managerial and shareholder preferences regarding dividend payout policies, consistent with the presence of agency costs. We also find that despite the incentives created by the tax, the actual growth in dividends during 1936 was lower among firms judged more likely to be subject to higher agency costs after controlling for liquidity, debt, and the growth in earnings.
Why do NASDAQ Market Makers Avoid Odd‐Eighth Quotes?
Published: 12/01/1994 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1994.tb04782.x
WILLIAM G. CHRISTIE, PAUL H. SCHULTZ
The NASDAQ multiple dealer market is designed to produce narrow bid‐ask spreads through the competition for order flow among individual dealers. However, we find that odd‐eighth quotes are virtually nonexistent for 70 of 100 actively traded NASDAQ securities, including Apple Computer and Lotus Development. The lack of odd‐eighth quotes cannot be explained by the negotiation hypothesis of Harris (1991), trading activity, or other variables thought to impact spreads. This result implies that the inside spread for a large number of NASDAQ stocks is at least $0.25 and raises the question of whether NASDAQ dealers implicitly collude to maintain wide spreads.
Nasdaq Trading Halts: The Impact of Market Mechanisms on Prices, Trading Activity, and Execution Costs
Published: 12/17/2002 | DOI: 10.1111/1540-6261.00466
William G. Christie, Shane A. Corwin, Jeffrey H. Harris
We study the effects of alternative halt and reopening procedures on prices, transaction costs, and trading activity for a sample of news‐related trading halts on Nasdaq. For intraday halts that reopen after only a five‐minute quotation period, inside quoted spreads more than double following halts and volatility increases to more than nine times normal levels. In contrast, halts that reopen the following day with a longer 90‐minute quotation period are associated with insignificant spread effects and significantly dampened volatility effects. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that increased information transmission during the halt results in reduced posthalt uncertainty.
Why Did NASDAQ Market Makers Stop Avoiding Odd‐Eighth Quotes?
Published: 12/01/1994 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1994.tb04783.x
WILLIAM G. CHRISTIE, JEFFREY H. HARRIS, PAUL H. SCHULTZ
On May 26 and 27, 1994 several national newspapers reported the findings of Christie and Schultz (1994) who cannot reject the hypothesis that market makers of active NASDAQ stocks implicitly colluded to maintain spreads of at least $0.25 by avoiding odd‐eighth quotes. On May 27, dealers in Amgen, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft sharply increased their use of odd‐eighth quotes, and mean inside and effective spreads fell nearly 50 percent. This pattern was repeated for Apple Computer the following trading day. Using individual dealer quotes for Apple and Microsoft, we find that virtually all dealers moved in unison to adopt odd‐eighth quotes.
Effects of Market Reform on the Trading Costs and Depths of Nasdaq Stocks
Published: 05/06/2003 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00097
Michael J. Barclay, William G. Christie, Jeffrey H. Harris, Eugene Kandel, Paul H. Schultz
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 binding limit orders. Additionally, superior quotes placed by Nasdaq dealers in private trading venues began to be displayed in the Nasdaq market. We measure the impact of these new rules on various measures of performance, including trading costs and depths. Our results indicate that quoted and effective spreads fell dramatically without adversely affecting market quality.