Mitchell A. Petersen

Posted versus effective spreads: Good prices or bad quotes?☆

Abstract When trades are executed inside the posted bid-ask spread, the posted spread is no longer an accurate measure of transactions costs faced by investors. Using two samples of market orders, one based on orders submitted by retail brokers and one based on orders submitted electronically to the NYSE, we document a significant difference between the posted spread and the effective spread paid by investors. For most orders, the effective spread averages half the posted spread. In addition, when the posted spread widens, only 10 to 22% of the increase appears in the effective spread. These results have significant implications for any empirical work that uses the posted spread as a measure of the cost of trading. Our findings also document a significant difference in the expected execution price across exchanges. This finding is robust to controls for the type of order, and implies that U.S. equity markets are not completely integrated.

Risk Measurement and Hedging: With and Without Derivatives

This paper examines a setting in which the derivatives strategies of two firms are known, but completely different. One firm aggressively hedges its risk using derivatives. The other firm uses a combination of operating and financial decisions, but no derivatives, to manage its risk. The different choice of methods is a result of different abilities to adjust operating costs and different needs for investment capital. Managerial incentives also play a role. Although risk-averse managers have an incentive to reduce risk, how and how much they hedge depends on how they are compensated.

Pension Reversions and Worker-Stockholder Wealth Transfers

This paper examines the relative importance of transfers from workers to shareholders in the firms decision to terminate their overfunded defined benefit pension plans. In contrast to earlier studies, I find evidence that firms terminate their pension plans to relieve themselves of implicit promises to workers of future compensation. In addition, financing and tax considerations influence the reversion decision. The results suggest that the 1986 excise tax on asset reversions reduced termination for reversion by 36 percent in 1986.

Understanding the Rise in Corporate Cash: Precautionary Savings or Foreign Taxes

Has the need for precautionary savings driven the dramatic increase in U.S. corporate cash? We show that the run-up in cash is concentrated in foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations. Precautionary motives explain variation in the level of cash held domestically, but not the level or growth of foreign cash. Multinational firms’ foreign cash balances are instead explained by low foreign tax rates and the ability to transfer profits within the firm through among related subsidiaries. The firms with the greatest incentive and ability to transfer income to low tax jurisdictions do, causing cash to accumulate in their foreign subsidiaries.