Why Legalized Insider Trading Would Be a Disaster

Insider Trading and Innovation

This paper assesses whether the enforcement of insider trading laws increases or decreases patent-based measures of technological innovation. Based on about 75,000 industry-countryyear observations across 94 economies from 1976 to 2006, we find evidence consistent with the view that enforcing insider trading laws spurs innovation—as measured by patent intensity, scope, impact, generality, and o...

Opportunistic insider trading☆

Article history: Received 22 June 2011 Accepted 23 July 2012 Available online 31 July 2012 This study proposes a simple framework to disentangle insiders' opportunistic trade from liquidity trade. An opportunistic trade occurswhen the probability of informed trading and the speed of convergence to market efficiency increase in a month of an insider transaction. Using Thailand Securities Exchang...

Informed Options Trading prior to M&A Announcements: Insider Trading?∗

We investigate informed trading activity in equity options prior to the announcement of corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A). For the target companies, we document pervasive directional options activity, consistent with strategies that would yield abnormal returns to investors with private information. This is demonstrated by positive abnormal trading volumes, excess implied volatility and ...

Prioritizing Enforcement in Insider Trading

Insider Trading with Stochastic Valuation†

This paper studies a model of strategic trading with asymmetric information of an asset whose value follows a Brownian motion. An insider continuously observes a signal that tracks the evolution of the asset fundamental value. At a random time a public announcement reveals the current value of the asset to all the traders. The equilibrium has two regimes separated by an endogenously determined ...