Fire sales induced by investor redemptions have powerful spillover effects among funds that hold the same assets, hurting peer funds' performance and flows, and leading to further asset sales with negative bond price impact. A one-standard-deviation increase in our fire-sale spillover measure leads to a 45 (90) bp decrease in peer fund returns (flows) and a two percentage point increase in the likelihood

During crisis periods, investors often engage in short selling of stocks, in line with their pessimistic view of the present and future market performance as well as with the hope to repurchase the stocks back in the future at much lower prices. This attitude not only affects stock returns, but also may lead to significant risk transmission among assets. Addressing this concern, our study examines

In this paper, we aim to analyse the role of shareholders in the creation of discretionary loan loss provisions (LLP) and the use of LLP in income smoothing. Using a sample of over 200 Central European banks, we demonstrate that LLP and income smoothing of foreign-owned banks and state-owned banks differ from those of domestic private banks. Foreign and state banks create higher discretionary LLP than

We examine the effect of CEO inside debt on corporate social responsibility (CSR). We document a positive relation between CEO inside debt and CSR. This positive relation is attenuated not only when firms face high risk, but also when firms have high short-term institutional ownership. Our evidence supports the view that CEOs with large inside debt holdings are more concerned about firm sustainability

Firms with a negative ISS recommendation see significant reduction in shareholder support for their proposals and are likely to face pressure to increase support in upcoming meetings. We find that firms facing voting pressure are significantly more likely to disclose positive content in discretionary sections of Form 8-K that result in higher abnormal stock returns in the months prior to the shareholder

There is an extensive body of theory on information heterogeneity, the impact of higher order beliefs and short-termism on asset pricing, yet empirical studies testing their implications are scarce. The objective of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the existence of multiple equilibria in a marked short-term stock market, Borsa Istanbul. Results indicate existence of two extremal equilibria

We argue that certain currency pairs, similar to stocks, are perceived and employed as gambling opportunities. We define currency pairs with extreme positive daily returns as lotteries. By analyzing data from a popular foreign exchange focused social trading platform, we provide empirical evidence of a U-shaped relationship between previous relative trader performance and the traded lottery share:

As highlighted by recent literature, long-term foreign exchange risk premia (FRP) of a currency pair tend to covary negatively with short-term real interest rates differentials (RIRD) of the pair. We fit an affine term structure model for 9 major currencies against the US dollar and estimate two components of this covariance: the real risk premia (RRP) component and the inflation risk premia differential

This paper extracts an investor sentiment indicator for the 30 DJIA stocks based on the textual classification of 289,024 online tweets posted on the so-called StockTwits, and examines its contemporaneous and predictability effects on the dispersion of stock returns using the quantile regression technique. We find that both contemporaneous and predictability effects of sentiment are heterogeneous throughout

We demonstrate a new powerful predictive signal for cryptocurrency returns: the last day's return. Based on daily prices of more than 3600 coins, we document that the cryptocurrencies with low last day's return significantly outperform their counterparts with high last day's return. The effect is confirmed by a battery of cross-sectional tests and portfolio sorts, and is not subsumed by a broad range

This study investigates the predictability of oil return on stock market return using a series of economic constraints. We find that oil return has a more powerful and stable prediction ability than its asymmetric form using an unconstrained approach and three constraint approaches. A new constraint, regarding the three-sigma rule, can obtain a higher forecast accuracy than other methods. Moreover

This study explores the relation between investor sentiment in equity market and investments in corporate-bond funds. Investors tend to move into and out of corporate-bond funds when contemporaneous sentiment in equity market differs from the historical average. Specifically, a one-standard-deviation decrease in equity-market sentiment generates 0.1% and 0.4% inflows for active and index funds, respectively

Since the inception of the Corporation Amendment Act in 2011 to improve Director and Executive remuneration accountability, Australian corporations have been conducting gigantesque stock buyback programs (SBPs) on an unprecedented scale. This paper aims to develop an optimisation model that rationalises the relationship between SBPs and equity incentive plans (EIPs) for a risk-averse employee before

Although the nation was experiencing an economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, we nonetheless observed an increase in household equity share value relative to both domestic market capitalization and retail investors’ trading volume. In this paper, we aim to interpret the reasons underlying this seemingly unexpected phenomenon. We investigate portfolio choices with stocks, bonds, and

Using both survey and trading data from 9,286 retail investors for the 2005-2011 period, we highlight the impact of financial literacy and risk tolerance on retail stock portfolio exposure to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors. Our results also reveal that the three ESG factors are not homogeneous and should be considered separately. Lower exposure to ESG factors during the

It is well known that there are asymmetric dependence structures between financial returns. This paper describes a portfolio selection method rooted in the classical mean–variance framework that incorporates such asymmetric dependency structures using a nonparametric measure of local dependence, the local Gaussian correlation (LGC). It is shown that the portfolio optimization process for financial

We study the determinants of asset market fragmentation in a model with strategic investors that disagree about the value of an asset. Investors’ choices determine the market structure. Fragmented markets are supported in equilibrium when disagreement between investors is low. In this case, investors take the same side of the market and are willing to trade in smaller markets with a higher price impact

Analogous to Stambaugh (1999), this paper derives the small sample bias of estimators in J-horizon predictive regressions, providing a closed-form solution in terms of the sample size, horizon and persistence of the predictive variable. For large J, the bias is linear in JT with a slope that depends on the predictive variable's persistence. The paper offers a number of other useful results, including

The distribution of power in the political system shapes the financial reporting opacity of banks. Specifically, banks located in states with senators on the Senate Banking Committee (BC senators) have greater abnormal loan loss provisions than banks in other states. The result is stronger for larger banks and banks with higher risk. In addition, BC senators have a negative effect on the likelihood

Partisan perception affects the actions of professionals in the financial sector. Linking credit rating analysts to party affiliations from voter records, we show that analysts not affiliated with the U.S. president's party downward-adjust corporate credit ratings more frequently. Since we compare analysts with different party affiliations covering the same firm in the same quarter, differences in

Audit firms are investing billions of dollars to develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems that will help auditors execute challenging tasks (e.g., evaluating complex estimates). Although firms assume AI will enhance audit quality, a growing body of research documents that individuals often exhibit “algorithm aversion” – the tendency to discount computer-based advice more heavily than human advice

This study investigates how the relation between value-at-risk (VaR) and expected returns differs under different mispricing statuses. We find that a significantly negative VaR-return relation, defined as the VaR effect, is observed only for overpriced stocks, but not for underpriced stocks. Moreover, VaR has an amplification effect on mispricing, indicating that VaR captures risk that deters arbitrage

We examine the impact of policy uncertainty on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Using a sample of 23 countries worldwide over the period from 2003 to 2016, we provide evidence that when a country has high policy uncertainty, the volume of inbound acquisition decreases whereas the total number of outbound deals increase significantly. Policy uncertainty also encourages acquirers to use

This paper investigates whether matching has differential implications for the accuracy of analysts' earnings and revenue forecasts. We construct a novel measure of firm-level matching and document that matching improves analysts' earnings forecasts to a greater extent than their revenue forecasts. We also document matching's differential impact on analysts' earnings and sales forecasts by proposing

We study the effects of social media on the informativeness of retail trading. Our identification strategy exploits the editorial delay between report submission and publication on Seeking Alpha, a popular crowdsourced investment research platform. We find the ability of retail order imbalances to predict the cross-section of stock returns and cash-flow news increases sharply in the intraday post-publication

Across a broad range of equipment types and industries, we document a pattern of local capital reallocation from older firms to younger firms. Start-ups purchase a disproportionate share of old physical capital previously owned by more mature firms. The evidence is consistent with financial constraints driving differential demand for vintage capital. The local supply of used capital influences start-up

We survey 2,484 U.S. individuals with at least $1 million of investable assets about how well leading academic theories describe their financial beliefs and personal investment decisions. The wealthy's beliefs about financial markets and the economy are surprisingly similar to those of the average U.S. household, but the wealthy are less driven by discomfort with the market, financial constraints,

Classical security design papers equate competitive capital markets to securities being fairly priced in expectation. We revisit (Nachman and Noe, 1994)’s adverse selection setting, modeling capital market competition as free entry of investors and allowing firms to propose prices for their securities, as happens in private securities placements and bank lending. We identify equilibria in which high

A large theoretical literature studies the effects of creditor control during bankruptcy proceedings on firm outcomes. Empirical work in this area mainly examines reforms to creditor control rights during liquidation. In this paper, we use administrative microdata and exploit a legal reform in Denmark to provide the first causal estimates of creditor empowerment in reorganization—the complementary

We use the introduction of a U.S. commercial credit bureau to study when lenders adopt voluntary information sharing technology and the resulting consequences for competition and credit access. Our results suggest that lenders trade off access to new markets against heightened competition for their own borrowers. Lenders that initially do not adopt lose borrowers to competitors that do, which ultimately

A higher frequency of positive overnight returns followed by negative trading day reversals during a month suggests a more intense daily tug of war between opposing investor clienteles, who are likely composed of noise traders overnight and arbitrageurs during the day. We show that a more intense daily tug of war predicts higher future returns in the cross section. Additional tests support the conclusion

The Frankel-Wei regression framework measures the comovements between currencies, and assumes that all foreign exchange rates share a common numéraire. The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Special Drawing Right (SDR) is a regular choice for the common numéraire. However, the five-currency basket of the SDR lacks diversification, which results in significant positive comovements between the basket

Are smokers more likely to seek and follow financial advice? We build on literature which shows that investors who smoke have self-control issues and trade impulsively. We empirically measure self-control failures by identifying cigarette addiction in a sample of German brokerage clients and show that smokers are more likely to delegate their decisions to financial advisors which work like a commitment

How do financial markets react to populist electoral success? Theoretically, the effect can go in one of two directions. In the first instance, populists tend to espouse resolutely anti-finance ideas, and thus a populist wave would be expected to be bad for financial returns across the board. On the other hand, populists also tend to enact various stimulus and redistributive schemes, and these policies

We study how the arrival of macro-news affects the stock market's ability to incorporate the information in firm-level earnings announcements. Existing theories suggest that macro and firm-level earnings news are attention substitutes; macro-news announcements crowd out firm-level attention, causing less efficient processing of firm-level earnings announcements. We find the opposite: the sensitivity

We propose a new explanation for the persistence of gravity in international investment flows based on new facts about large cross-border commercial real estate transactions. Buyers in these transactions preferentially match with counterparties from own or proximate countries; such affinity-based matching helps alleviate financial investment frictions. We set up and structurally estimate a model of

AbstractWe assemble homeowner insurance claims from 28 independently operated country subsidiaries of a multinational insurance firm. We propose a new insurance model, in which consumers can make invalid claims and firms can deny valid claims, as is common in the data. In the model, trust and honesty shape equilibrium insurance contracts, disputes, and claim payments, especially when disputes are too

Do potential entrepreneurs remain in wage employment because of concerns that they will face worse job opportunities should their entrepreneurial ventures fail? Using a Canadian reform that extends job-protected leave to one year for women giving birth after a cutoff date, we study whether the option to return to a previous job increases entrepreneurship. A regression discontinuity design reveals that

AbstractSince the finance industry is transforming into a data industry, measuring the quantity of data investors have about various assets is important. Informed by a structural model, we develop such a cross-sectional measure. We show how our measure differs from price informativeness and use it to document a new fact: data about large high-growth firms is becoming increasingly abundant, relative

AbstractWe show that institutional investors are more likely to invest in firms from regions to which they have stronger social ties but find no evidence that these investments earn a differential return. Firms in regions with stronger social ties to locations with many institutional investors have higher valuations and liquidity. These effects are largest for small firms with little analyst coverage

Sports betting markets offer a novel laboratory to test theories of cross-sectional asset pricing anomalies. Two features of this market – no systematic risk and terminal values exogenous to betting activity – evade the joint hypothesis problem, allowing mispricing to be detected. Examining a large and diverse set of liquid betting contracts, I find strong evidence of momentum, consistent with delayed

This paper investigates the effects of ambiguity on the optimal fund leverage and the private risk-taking of a hedge fund manager with a high-water mark contract and locked wealth in the fund. We derive a closed-form solution that predicts an increase in ambiguity about the market risk has a U-shaped effect on the optimal fund leverage but a monotonic decreasing effect on the private risk-taking. An

Employing a novel control function regression method that accounts for the endogenous matching of banks and executives, we find that equity portfolio vega, the sensitivity of executives’ equity portfolio value to their firms’ stock return volatility, leads to systemic risk that manifests during subsequent economic contractions but not expansions. We further find that vega encourages systemically risky

This paper examines the impact of the coronavirus pandemic during its first and second waves for the USA, UK, Europe, and Japan. We explore the firm-level dynamics and exhibit the impact of coronavirus events on large and small firms and firms' idiosyncratic risk. We find that the intensity of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic events is not uniform for firms. The Blank Swan events in March 2020

This study examines the difference in abnormal returns of constituent stocks on the inception dates of ETFs by grouping U.S. AI ETFs into those with AI names and those without AI names. The results show that the constituent stocks of AI ETFs with AI names have approximately 0.4% more cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) than those of AI ETFs without AI names over the event period, confirming that ETF

This paper examines the impact of historical endowment on the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) market. Leveraging a sample of 1,617 hand collected ICOs over 2015-2019 and regressions models, we find that a country's legal origin, disease environment, exposure to slave trade, and proximity to ancient trade routes are important determinants of the total amount of capital raised through ICOs. Further analyses

This paper examines the relationship between organization capital and promotion-based tournament incentives. Using a sample of 33,618 publicly listed U.S. firm-year observations covering 1992–2020, the results show that firms with high levels of organization capital have relatively more promotion-based tournament incentives, and that tournament incentives in high organization capital firms improve

Warren Buffett is a long-term investor, but is required by law to disclose his trades every quarter. While the market reacts to the disclosure of his trades, the reaction is incomplete. From 1980 to 2018, it has been possible to achieve investment results similar to Buffett's own simply by mimicking his trades disclosed. Buffett's long-term strategy is surmised to exploit the underreaction to the public

We examine whether and how terrorist attacks influence the British and the French stock markets through investor sentiment. Using a quantile regression approach, our results indicate that terrorist attacks have adverse effects on the British and the French stock market returns under extreme market conditions. In terms of volatility, surprisingly, we find that these exogenous events decrease the volatility

Using a panel of 78 countries for 2013 – 2019, I show that fintech credit platforms can act as both complements and substitutes for traditional bank credit and that banking sector characteristics are likely to play a part in shaping the relationship. Estimates suggest that in less concentrated, more liquid and more stable banking sectors, banks and fintech credit platforms tend not to compete for the

This paper investigates how culture affects US global mutual funds’ financial performance. I show that cultural dimensions are crucial not only for portfolio allocation choices but also for assessing the performance of institutional investors. Choosing securities from familiar cultural proximate markets significantly enhances the performance of mutual funds. The results suggest that fund managers can

Existing studies suggest that stocks with lottery-like characteristics tend to underperform, especially when they attract retail trades, and that the degree of underperformance is closely related to investors’ forgiving (vs. forbidding) attitude toward gambles/lotteries embedded in their religious norms. We examine how lottery-like stocks are valued in Saudi Arabia where stock trades are dominated

In The Impact of IP Box Regimes on the M&A Market, Bradley, Robinson, and Ruf (2021) study whether and to what extent tax incentives for intellectual property affect corporate M&A investment activity. The paper finds that a 1.0 percentage point tax benefit leads to a 1.2% increase in M&A activity in a country after the implementation of an Intellectual Property (IP) Box tax regime. Results vary based

This paper examines how risk-taking is affected by non-compliance with a ‘comply or explain’ based system of corporate governance. Using System Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimates to control for various types of endogeneity, the results of this study show that non-compliance with the UK Corporate Governance Code is positively associated with total, systematic, and idiosyncratic risk. However

We examine the way cultural alignment between acquirer and target management teams affects the success of M&As. By tracing managers’ cultural origins based on their family names, we obtain two measures of cultural alignment: cultural distance and origin similarity between the management teams. The regression results show that firms with culturally aligned management teams are more likely to form merger-pairs

We examine voluntary disclosure decisions when firms are uncertain about audience preferences and are risk averse. In contrast to classic “unraveling” results, some firms remain silent in equilibrium. Silence is safer than disclosure; silence reduces the sensitivity of a firm’s payoff to audience preferences. Increases in firm (audience) risk-aversion reduce (increase) disclosure. Our model explains

We use experimental markets to examine how pushing investment information and the value relevance of that information interact to influence investors’ value estimate accuracy and market price efficiency. Developments in technology allow information to be pushed to investors anytime and anywhere. However, in addition to value-relevant information, pushed information often includes information that is

To meet short-term benchmarks, lenders may alter their monitoring behavior, providing a channel for short-termism to spill over to their borrowers. We find that short-termist lenders are significantly more likely to enforce covenant breaches. This behavior is pronounced when performance benchmarks are precise or salient, and when managers have high pay-performance sensitivity, but not when they face

Hedge fund positions are an important component of crowded trades. These vehicles are particularly active, take highly concentrated positions, and utilize leverage and short sales. Using a database of hedge fund holdings, we measure the degree of security-level crowdedness. The difference between the average returns on portfolios sorted by high versus low crowdedness portfolios is sizable, and the

D82G14