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We examine the size and composition of commercial lending syndicates. Syndicates are smaller and more concentrated when there is little information about the borrower, when credit risk is relatively high, and when a loan is secured. This suggests syndicates are structured to enhance monitoring efforts and to facilitate renegotiation if borrowers become financially distressed. Since loan sales can change a syndicate's structure, lead banks often constrain such activity. Limiting resales results in larger, more diffuse syndicates at the loan origination stage, however. Syndicates also grow larger and more diffuse when arrangers are more reputable, when loans have longer terms to maturity, and when borrowers hold more growth options. Our results are robust in a sample restricted to borrowers with traded equity or with credit ratings. The findings for composition likewise are robust when we control for potential endogeneity bias and for the influence of syndicate size on composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we investigate stock price behavior before and after surprise events. We form four base portfolios and sixteen control portfolios, taking into consideration the event direction, the magnitude of event-day surprises, the potentially confounding effects due to calendar regularities in stock returns, and the ex-post outlier month of October 1987. Using capital market data from 1964 to 1989, we find a pre-event stock price behavior pattern that we call the reverse anticipation puzzle. We also confirm the existence of the overreaction pattern. The pre- and post-event stock price behavior patterns are found to be similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]