We examine market efficiency and the price-volume relation in Class A and Class B shares on the Shanghai exchange relative to the U. S. equity market. Variance ratios and runs tests for market efficiency support the hypothesis that both Class A and Class B markets follow a random walk. In addition, the augmented Dickey-Fuller test supports the null hypothesis that the Shanghai market follows a random-walk process with drift. We also find a significantly positive relation between changes in volume and absolute price returns in both Class A and Class B shares, which is consistent with studies on U.S. equity markets. However, when using signed returns, our results are stronger than most U.S. studies on price-volume relations.

Although the number of mutual funds grew during the 1990s, much of the growth is attributable to the introduction of multiple share class (MS) funds. Proponents argue that the MS structure leads to cost savings, which can be passed onto investors as lower expenses. However, if the structure lowers costs, sponsors are likely to profit from it. Though investors are concerned about the base expense ratio, the sum of administrative and management fees, fund sponsors generate profits from the management fees. As such, they would prefer to increase the management fee if they can simultaneously lower administrative fees. Our results indicate that MS fund investors pay lower administrative fees, but management fees are approximately 7 basis points higher than single-class funds. Overall, base expense ratios are higher than for single-class funds, suggesting fund sponsors capture the cost benefits the MS structure provides. Our results are robust to different model specifications and different estimation techniques. Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.

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We investigate the relation between mispricing in the Black-Scholes option pricing (BSOP) model and volume in the option market. Our results indicate heavily traded call options are priced more efficiently and have lower mispricing errors than thinly traded options. However, this relation shifts significantly on days when call option trading is high. On high-volume days, the BSOP model mispricing errors are significantly larger than mispricing errors on normal-volume days. We believe large increases in volume may reflect new and changing market information, thus making pricing less efficient in the BSOP model.