A great deal has been written about the existence of a multi-tiered stock market while little is known about the effects [8], Elia [16,17,18,19,20,21,22], Freund [25], Farrar [23], Klemkosky [29,30], Loomis [32], Robbins [47], Rosenberg [48], Seligman [5], Smidt [55], Soldofsky [56], West and Tinic [67], and Schultz [50]). More recent discussions have considered the current nature of the tiered market (Welles [65,66], Carson-Parker [11], Ang [1], Marcial [36,37,38], Lurie [34], Janeway [27], Buhl [10], and Loomis [33]). While changes may have occurred, we believe a tiered market exists and will continue to influence trading and relative pricing (Elia [17,18,19], Marcial [37,38], and Reilly [45]). Because a multi-tiered stock market will probably continue, it becomes important to determine the effects of the tiered market on the securities and firms involved. Specifically, this paper examines common stocks in one of three market tiers (based on various measures of size), in terms of trading activity, price volatility, and financing characteristics during the 15-year period 1964–1978. The total period is divided into three subperiods representing periods of increasing trading activity by institutional investors. Specifically, the first period is generally prior to the institutional impact, the second is a transitional period, and the recent period is when institutions havebecome the dominant trading group.

It is important to investigate the characteristics of firms in differing size categories (tiers) in order to document any size-related differences that may exist among these firms. Such investigations may lead to improvements in asset-pricing models as empiricists test the impacts of these differences on the actual pricing of securities. Reilly and Drzycimski (R & D) have provided evidence that a number of such differences exist: volatility, debt ratios, and trading volume appear not to be homogeneously distributed across firm size categories nor across time, but there are some difficulties with the paper that need airing.

This paper has developed a model of bank margins or spreads in which the bank is viewed as a risk-averse dealer. It was demonstrated that an interest spread or margin would always exist, and that this was the result of transactions uncertainty faced by the bank. Moreover, it was shown that this pure spread depended on four factors: the degree of managerial risk aversion; the size of transactions undertaken by the bank; bank market structure; and the variance of interest rates. The model implied that liability and asset structures had to be analyzed together since they were directly interrelated through transactions uncertainty. It was shown that because of this transactions uncertainty, hedging behavior was perfectly rational within an expected utility maximizing framework. Extending the model from a structure with one kind of loan and deposit to loans and deposits with many maturities should lead to further interesting insights into margin determination especially as “portfolio” effects may become apparent.

In this paper Ho and Saunders apply a model that has been used to analyze dealer spreads to banking.

A potential contribution to a field can arise whenever a well-developed framework of analysis in one problem area is applied to another field. The risk of a mechanical application, however, is that the institutional structure of the two problem areas is so different that no real insights are gained. What are the facts here?

Controversy over the implications of debt and the rationale belying capital structure has seemingly come to rest upon a plateau defined by Miller's equilibrium analysis of aggregate corporate debt [10]. In “Debt and Taxes,” Miller reasserts his contention that whether capital is obtained through debt or equity has no bearing on the market value of the firm and is, therefore, irrelevant--a notion which has long been accepted with some reluctance by the finance academe. When the Modigliani-Miller model was first offered some 20 years ago [11], it was accompanied by a set of assumptions which portrayed the world of corporate finance in such malleable terms as to make the irrelevancy propositions palatable. Adaptation of this theoretical model (by its originators) to its secular counterpart through the imposition of corporate taxes [12] brought about a reassuring reversal of the irrelevancy doctrine, but left in its stead the disconcerting prescription to maximize firm value by financing exclusively via debt. Consideration of tax effects at the personal level by Farrar and Selwyn [7] marked the next concession to reality by capital structure theorists. Instead of alienating the original model still further from observed corporate behavior, this step provided a means of reconciling the overwhelming advantage of debt financing at the corporate level with the ultimate after-tax “consumption possibilities” afforded to individual investors. Miller's analysis explains that corporations are forced to “gross up” nominal interest rates to attract bondholders who must be compensated for their personal tax liability [10]. Potential increases in market value due to the taxdeductibility of interest payments are exhausted in the competitive drive toward equilibrium—at which point there are no gains from leverage. The sanctity of the irrelevance theorem thus appears to have been restored at the aggregate level.