Motions for Lead Plaintiff in Securities Class Actions

Stephen J. Choi

The Journal of Legal Studies, 2011, vol. 40, issue 1, 205 - 244

Abstract: Using a data set of securities class actions filed from 2003 to 2005, this study assesses the effect of the lead plaintiff presumption enacted as part of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 on agency costs of lead counsel for the class and class members. Examining the pretrial motions for lead plaintiff for each class action, the study reports evidence that characteristics of the selected lead plaintiff, including the amount of losses suffered, the presence of institutional investors, and the presence of institutions that are frequent movants for lead plaintiff status, are negatively correlated with attorney agency costs. The amount of competition in the lead plaintiff selection process and the formation of some (but not all) groups of lead plaintiffs are also negatively correlated with agency costs.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/658405 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/658405 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/658405

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Journal of Legal Studies from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().