Can Managers Time the Market? Evidence Using Repurchase Price Data

Little is known about the price firms pay for stock repurchases. Using a dataset of all U.S. repurchases from 2004 to 2011, we compare the actual average price paid monthly in a repurchase to the average market price for the same stock over various horizons. We find that firms repurchase stock at a significantly lower price than the average market price in all sample years. Less frequent repurchasers, firms that repurchase when insiders buy on their own account, and firms that experience low stock returns prior to the repurchase obtain significantly lower prices. After controlling for risk factors, repurchasing firms earn positive returns; infrequent repurchasers earn a significantly higher return up to three years following the actual repurchase.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106638/1/1234_Dittmar.pd

The Dynamics of Cash

Little is known about how firms manage cash policy over time. This paper fills this gap by examining if and how firms manage cash toward a target cash ratio. Estimating partial adjustment models of cash, we find that firms actively adjust their cash toward a target; however, the speed of adjustment is slow and there is large dispersion in the speed of adjustment across firms. We investigate the causes for this and find evidence consistent with the presence of adjustment costs. We also examine the implications of these results for previous interpretations of cross-sectional results. To do this, we simulate firms’ cash paths allowing for costly adjustment and find that the emerging patterns question the interpretation of some of the standard results in the empirical cash literaturehttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65067/1/1138_Duchin.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65067/3/1138_Duchin_may.pd

Does Capital Market Myopia Affect Plant Productivity? Evidence from Going Private Transactions

One influential criticism of the stock market oriented U.S. financial system is that its excessive focus on short term quarterly earnings forces public firms to behave in a myopic manner. We hypothesize that if capital markets pressure listed firms to be myopic in a way that impacts efficiency, then going private (when myopia is eliminated) should cause U.S. firms to improve their establishment level productivity relative to a peer control groups of firms. We find no evidence that this is the case. Our key finding is that while there is evidence for substantial within-establishment increases in productivity after going private, there is little evidence of difference-in-differences efficiency gains relative to peer groups of establishments constructed to control for industry, age, size at the time of going private, and the endogeneity of the going private decision effects. Also, we do not find evidence that myopic markets lead to under-investment at the establishment level. On the contrary, we find that after going private, firms shrink capital and employment, and close plants more quickly, relative to peer groups. Our findings cast doubt on the view that public markets cause listed firms to make sub-optimal, productivity-decreasing choices, or under-invest at the establishment level.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78529/1/1153_JSivadasan.pd

Measurement of associated Z plus charm production in proton-proton collisions at root s=8TeV

A study of the associated production of a Z boson and a charm quark jet (Z + c), and a comparison to production with a b quark jet (Z + b), in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV are presented. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1), collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The Z boson candidates are identified through their decays into pairs of electrons or muons. Jets originating from heavy flavour quarks are identified using semileptonic decays of c or b flavoured hadrons and hadronic decays of charm hadrons. The measurements are performed in the kinematic region with two leptons with pT(l) > 20 GeV, vertical bar eta(l)vertical bar 25 GeV and vertical bar eta(jet)vertical bar Z + c + X) B(Z -> l(+)l(-)) = 8.8 +/- 0.5 (stat)+/- 0.6 (syst) pb. The ratio of the Z+c and Z+b production cross sections is measured to be sigma(pp -> Z+c+X)/sigma (pp -> Z+b+X) = 2.0 +/- 0.2 (stat)+/- 0.2 (syst). The Z+c production cross section and the cross section ratio are also measured as a function of the transverse momentum of theZ boson and of the heavy flavour jet. The measurements are compared with theoretical predictions.Peer reviewe

Measurement of the underlying event activity in inclusive Z boson production in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

This paper presents a measurement of the underlying event activity in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV, performed using inclusive Z boson production events collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC. The analyzed data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 2.1 fb(-1). The underlying event activity is quantified in terms of the charged particle multiplicity, as well as of the scalar sum of the charged particles' transverse momenta in different topological regions defined with respect to the Z boson direction. The distributions are unfolded to the stable particle level and compared with predictions from various Monte Carlo event generators, as well as with similar CDF and CMS measurements at center-of-mass energies of 1.96 and 7TeV respectively.Peer reviewe

More than just child’s play?: An experimental investigation of the impact of an appearance-focused internet game on body image and career aspirations of young girls

© 2017, The Author(s). In recent years, elements of the modern environment (such as television, Internet, toys and clothes) have been criticized for having an increasingly sexualized or appearance focus, which has been suggested to be detrimental to girls’ development. The current study examined the impact of an appearance-focused Internet game on young girls’ body image and career cognitions and aspirations. Eighty British girls aged 8–9 years were randomly assigned to play an appearance-focused or a non-appearance focused game for 10 minutes. Girls in the appearance-focused game condition displayed greater body dissatisfaction compared to the control condition. Type of game did not impact girls’ perceived capacity to do various jobs. However, girls who played the appearance-focused game reported a greater preference for feminine careers compared to the control group. This provides preliminary evidence that appearance-focused Internet games may be detrimental to young girls’ body image and aspirations. Internet games should be included in our consideration of influential messages for young girls

Why Do Firms Issue Equity?

We develop and test a new theory of security issuance that is consistent with the puzzling stylized fact that firms issue equity when their stock prices are high. The theory also generates new predictions. Our theory predicts that managers use equity to finance projects when they believe that investors’ views about project payoffs are likely to be aligned with theirs, thus maximizing the likelihood of agreement with investors. Otherwise, they use debt. We find strong empirical support for our theory and document its incremental explanatory power over other security-issuance theories like market timing and time-varying adverse selection.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39141/1/1019.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39141/4/1019.pd