Michigan Law Review Volume 87 Issue 3 1988 The Unimportance of Being Efficient: Anconomic E Analysis of Stock Market Pricing and Securities Regulation Lynn A. Stout George Washington University, National Law Center Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Law and Economics Commons, and the Securities Law Commons Recommended Citation Lynn A. Stout, The Unimportance of Being Efficient: Anconomic E Analysis of Stock Market Pricing and Securities Regulation, 87 MICH. L. REV. 613 (1988). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol87/iss3/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE UNIMPORTANCE OF BEING EFFICIENT: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF STOCK MARKET PRICING AND SECURITIES REGULATIONt Lynn A. Stout* TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ••.....••• •"•............................... 615 I. THE INFLUENCE OF EFFICIENCY OBJECTIVES ON THE REGULATION OF SECURITIES MARKETS . • . • . • . • 619 . A. Insider Trading . 622 B. Trading in Stock Index Futures . • . 627 C. Disclosure of Merger Negotiations and Other Soft Information . 632 D. Summary . 637 II. THE ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF STOCK PRICES................................................ 641 A. Efficient Markets and the Allocation of Investment Capital Among Corporations . 642 1. The Unimportance of Equity as a Source of Capital . 644 a. Firms rarely use equity issues to raise capital . 645 b. Equity prices do not significantly influence the cost of other sources of capital.