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Using a sample of over 9,000 buyback announcements from 31 non-U.S. countries, we find support for the results of studies based on U.S. data: On average, share repurchases are associated with significant positive short- and long-term excess returns. However, excess returns depend on the likelihood of undervaluation and the efficiency and liquidity of equity markets. In contrast to findings in U.S. markets, we do not find that these long-term excess returns are simply a compensation for takeover risk or have become less significant in recent years.

We study the informational role of corporate hedging. We compare two alternative hypotheses. Under the "opacity" hypothesis, corporate hedging makes earnings less informative, thus rendering the firm more opaque to the market, and increasing the profitability of more informed traders. Under the "transparency" hypothesis, corporate hedging, by reducing uncertainty about firm value, erodes the information advantage of the more informed traders, thus limiting their profitability. We test these hypotheses using a novel data set on short sales of US equities over the period 2002-2009, and hand-collected data on corporate hedging. Our tests support the "transparency" hypothesis. We document that hedging is associated with lower uncertainty (lower analyst forecast dispersion, greater breadth of institutional ownership, and lower option-implied stock price volatility). Hedging is also associated with a lower intensity of informed trading in general, and in particular of short selling. Furthermore, short selling profits are more than two times lower on the stocks of firms that engage in corporate hedging.JEL codes: G14, G23