This research responds to the attendant need for empirical evidence pertaining to how marketing affects firm performance. Using the Fama-French method, common in finance, and a leading marketplace measure of a brand’s financial equity value, the authors provide empirical evidence for the branding-shareholder value creation link. The results extend previous research by showing that strong brands not only deliver greater returns to stockholders than does a relevant benchmark but do so with less risk. This finding holds even when market share and firm size are considered.

Theory predicts that nonfinancial corporations might use derivatives to lower financial distress costs, coordinate cash flows with investment, or resolve agency conflicts between managers and owners. Using a new database, we find that traditional tests of these theories have little power to explain the determinants of corporate derivatives usage. Instead, we show that derivative usage is determined endogenously with other financial and operating decisions in ways that are intuitive but not related to specific theories for why firms hedge. For example, derivative usage helps determine the level and maturity of debt, dividend policy, holdings of liquid assets, and international operating hedging.

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"Recent research shows that mood and attention may affect investors' choices. In this paper we examine whether companies can create such mood and attention effects through advertising. We choose a natural experiment by investigating price reactions and trading activity for firms employing TV commercials in 19 Super Bowl broadcasts over the 1969-2001 period. We find significant positive abnormal returns for firms which are readily identifiable from the ad contents, which is consistent with the presence of mood and attention effects. For recognisable companies with the number of ads greater than the sample mean, the event is followed by an average abnormal one day return of 45 basis points. The effect appears to persist in the short term with the 20-day post-event cumulative abnormal returns for such firms averaging 2%. We find significant abnormal net buying activity for small trades in shares of recognised Super Bowl advertisers indicating that small investors tend to be the ones most attracted by the increased publicity". Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2005.

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This article contains both a theoretical and an empirical analysis of the components of interest rate swap spreads defined as the difference between the fixed swap rate and the risk-free rate of equal maturity. The components are determined by expected LIBOR spreads, default risk, and market structure. A model of the swap market incorporating debt market imperfections and corporate financing choices is used to explain participation by both swap buyers and sellers. The model also motivates an empirical relationship between swap spreads and the slope of the risk-free term structure. The article then provides empirical evidence on the crosssectional and time-series variation of swap spreads in seven international markets. The evidence is consistent with the suggested components across