Event studies have a long history. Perhaps the first published study is James Dolley (1933). In this work, he examines the price effects of stock splits, studying nominal price changes at the time of the split. Using a sample of 95 splits from 1921 to 1931, he finds that the price increased in 57 of the cases and the price declined in only 26 instances. Over the decades from the early 1930s until the late 1960s the level of sophistication of event studies increased. John H. Myers and Archie Bakey (1948), C. Austin Barker (1956,1957,1958) and John Ashley (1962) are examples of studies during this time period. The improvement included removing general stock market price movement and separating out confounding events. In the late 1960s seminal studies by Ray Ball and Philip Brown (1968) and Eugene Fama et al. (1969) introduced the methodology that is essentially the same as that which is in use today. Ball and Brown considered the information content of earning, and Fama et al. studied the effects of stock splits after removing the effects of simultancous dividend increases.