G. William Schwert

University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627
and National Bureau of Economic Research

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Journal of Financial Economics, 4 (January 1977) 51-78

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Stock exchange seats are important assets for securities brokers since they provide access to centralized secondary trading markets for corporate securities at a reduced cost. This paper provides empirical evidence on the dynamic behavior of monthly New York and American Stock Exchange seat prices over the 1926-72 period. Specifically, evidence is presented which: (a) is consistent with a multiplicative random walk model for seat prices; (b) indicates that unexpected changes in the prices of exchange-listed stocks or in the volume of shares traded on the exchange are important new information about the value of seats in each month; and (c) indicates that the market for seats is efficient in assimilating new information and quickly incorporates new information into the prices of seats. In addition, I examine the effect of the infrequent trading of seats on the statistical properties of the models.

Key words: Stock exchange seats, Regulation, Volume, Efficient markets, Nonsynchronous trading

JEL Classifications: G14

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Cited 36 times in the SSCI and SCOPUS through 2020

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© Copyright 1977, Elsevier

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