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Using betting market volume data for the NFL and NCAA Football, we examine the role of betting volume as it relates to bettor biases, forecast accuracy, and volume-based betting market strategies.  We find that betting volume has a statistically significant effect on the percentage bet on the favorite, but its impact is different between the two levels of football.  Increased betting volume was shown to not have an impact on forecast accuracy in the sports.  Simple betting simulations revealed that underdogs win more than implied by efficiency in low-volume NFL games, but other strategies did not reject market efficiency.

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We examine the relation of board size with market liquidity and adverse selection costs using a sample of Fortune 200 companies. After controlling for firm specifics, equity characteristics, and ratio of insiders, we find a direct relation between board size and equity market liquidity. Our findings indicate that board size is positively and significantly related to dollar depth but has no impact on bid-ask spreads. Furthermore, using the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread as a proxy for transparency, we find that larger boards reduce information asymmetries, but the ratio of insiders to total board members has no impact on informational asymmetries

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce a non‐normality premium (NNP) to identify the extra return that will compensate an investor for a non‐normal return distribution. The NNP quantifies the economic significance of non‐normality to complement a statistical significance test of non‐normality, such as the Jarque‐Bera test.Design/methodology/approachThe NNP is patterned after the risk premium, the amount that compensates an investor for the risk of an investment. The theoretical NNP is examined on the margins with Taylor series approximation and applied to hedge fund data.FindingsAn increase of 1 in the skewness has the same effect on an investor as an increase in the mean of 2.5 basis points per month. An increase of 1 in the kurtosis has the same effect on an investor as a decrease in the mean of 0.15 basis points per month. A sample of 716 hedge funds revealed that while 72 per cent statistically reject normality, only 29 per cent require more than a single basis point per month difference in the mean to compenscate an investor for the non‐normality.Originality/valueThe NNP allows for a valuation on the higher moments (skewness and kurtosis) of an investor's return distribution. The evaluation is tailored to the individual through use of a utility function. Once applied to an alternative investment vehicle, it is learned that rejecting normality is not sufficient grounds to suspect that the non‐normality is important to investors.

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