Summary

In my dissertation, I use publicly disclosed transactions by corporate insiders to examine what uninformed market participants can learn about (i) managers' prospects of future profitability, (ii) the quality of reported accounting numbers, (iii) managers' perception of the current pricing of the stock given all publicly available information, (iv) the relation between insider trading and firms' decisions to repurchase stock and to issue new shares, (v) the stock price reaction to the public disclosure of insider trading activity, (vi) the revision in future earnings expectations, and (vii) whether stock markets price the information asymmetries associated with insider trading.

Date of defence: 26 March 2010