We examine aggregate idiosyncratic volatility in 23 developed equity markets, measured using various methodologies. We find no evidence of upward trends after extending the sample to 2008. Instead, idiosyncratic volatility is well described by a stationary autoregressive process that occasionally switches into a higher-variance regime that has relatively short duration. We also document that idiosyncratic volatility is highly correlated across countries. Most of the time variation in idiosyncratic volatility can be attributed to variation in a growth opportunity proxy, total (U.S.) market volatility, and in most specifications, the variance premium, a business cycle sensitive risk indicator.

I study the relation between corporate diversification and labor productivity in a sample of over 500,000 firms from 46 countries. Across the entire sample, greater diversification is associated with significantly lower labor productivity. The negative relation between diversification and labor productivity is not stronger in countries with more burdensome employment regulation, but it is significantly stronger in countries with better financial development. In addition, the negative relation is stronger in industries with high capital/labor ratios. Overall, the results suggest that the lower productivity in diversified firms is due more to the misallocation of capital than to the inefficient use of labor.

We study an investor’s asset allocation problem with a recursive utility and with tradable volatility that follows a 2-factor stochastic volatility model. Consistent with previous findings under the additive utility, we show that the investor can benefit substantially from volatility trading due to hedging demand. Unlike existing studies, we find that the impact of elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) on investment decisions is of 1st-order importance. Moreover, the investor can incur significant economic losses due to model and/or parameter misspecifications where the EIS better captures the investor’s attitude toward risk than the risk aversion parameter.

We analyze 3,547 initial public offerings (IPOs) from 1985 through 2003 to determine the impact of acquisition activity on long-run stock performance. The results show that IPOs that acquire within a year of going public significantly underperform for 1- through 5-year holding periods following the 1st year, whereas nonacquiring IPOs do not significantly underperform over these time frames. For example, the mean 3-year style-adjusted abnormal return is – 15.6% for acquirers and 5.9% for nonacquirers. Our cross-sectional and calendar-time results suggest that the acquisition activity of newly public firms plays an important and previously unrecognized role in the long-run underperformance of IPOs.

This paper examines the impact of financial sponsor competition on corporate buyers. We find that corporate acquirers who purchase targets that financial buyers also bid on outperform corporate acquirers who buy targets bid on by corporate firms only. Deal characteristics, acquirer abilities, and observable target characteristics cannot explain this difference in returns. Corporate acquirers have higher returns when they follow a first bid by a financial buyer rather than a first bid by another corporate buyer. The results suggest that financial bidders identify targets with high potential for value improvement and winning corporate bidders are competent in exploiting this potential.

In an efficient market, spreads will reflect both the issuer’s current risk and investors’ expectations about how that risk might change over time. Collin-Dufresne and Goldstein (2001) show analytically that a firm’s expected future leverage importantly influences the spread on its bonds. We use capital structure theory to construct proxies for investors’ expectations about future leverage changes and find that these significantly affect bond yields, above and beyond the effect of contemporaneous leverage. Expectations under the trade-off, pecking order, and credit-rating theories of capital structure all receive empirical support, suggesting that investors view them as complementary when pricing corporate bonds.

We develop a new methodology to estimate abnormal performance and risk exposure of nontraded assets from cash flows. Our methodology extends the standard internal rate of return approach to a dynamic setting. The small-sample properties are validated using a simulation study. We apply the method to a sample of 958 private equity funds. For venture capital funds, we find a high market beta and underperformance before and after fees. For buyout funds, we find a relatively low market beta and no evidence for outperformance. We find that self-reported net asset values significantly overstate fund values for mature and inactive funds.

This study examines how the institutional environment influences capital structure and debt maturity choices of firms in 39 developed and developing countries. We find that a country’s legal and tax system, corruption, and the preferences of capital suppliers explain a significant portion of the variation in leverage and debt maturity ratios. Specifically, firms in more corrupt countries and those with weaker laws tend to use more debt, especially short-term debt; explicit bankruptcy codes and deposit insurance are associated with higher leverage and more long-term debt. More debt is used in countries where there is a greater tax gain from leverage.

We present a theory of the linkages between corporate governance, corporate finance, and the real sector of an economy. Using a structural model of industry equilibrium with endogenous entry, we show that poor corporate governance leads to low levels of competition, and to firms with high insider ownership and leverage. In contrast, good corporate governance promotes the adoption of more efficient technologies and development of sectors more exposed to moral hazard. We use our model to study equity market liberalization, and we show that liberalizations facilitate entry and adoption of more productive technologies, especially in countries with good corporate governance.

We find a strong tendency for positive returns during the overnight period followed by reversals during the trading day. This behavior is driven by an opening price that is high relative to intraday prices. It is concentrated among stocks that have recently attracted the attention of retail investors, it is more pronounced for stocks that are difficult to value and costly to arbitrage, and it is greater during periods of high overall retail investor sentiment. The additional implicit transaction costs for retail traders who buy high-attention stocks near the open frequently exceed the effective half spread.

This paper presents the first theoretical analysis of the choice of firms between “preparing” and not preparing the equity market in advance of a possible dividend cut. In our model, insiders have private information about their firm’s intermediate cash flow as well as about the net present value of its growth opportunity. We show that, in equilibrium, firms in temporary financial difficulties but with good long-term growth prospects are more likely to prepare the market in advance of dividend cuts, while those with permanently declining earnings are less likely to prepare the market. Our model generates several new testable predictions.

I evaluate whether the so-called long-run risk framework can jointly explain key features of both equity and bond markets as well as the interaction between asset prices and the macroeconomy. I find that shocks to expected consumption growth and time-varying macroeconomic volatility can account for the level of risk premia and its variation over time in both markets. The results suggest a common set of macroeconomic risk factors operating in equity and bond markets. I estimate the model using a simulation estimator that accounts for time aggregation of consumption growth and utilizes a rich set of moment conditions.

We study the relation between asset liquidity and stock liquidity. Our model shows that the relation may be either positive or negative depending on parameter values. Asset liquidity improves stock liquidity more for firms that are less likely to reinvest their liquid assets (i.e., firms with less growth opportunities and financially constrained firms). Empirically, we find a positive and economically large relation between asset liquidity and stock liquidity. Consistent with our model, the relation is more positive for firms that are less likely to reinvest their liquid assets. Our results also shed light on the value of holding liquid assets.

Using a comprehensive sample of U.S. mutual funds from 1992 to 2004, we find strong evidence that investment bank-affiliated funds underperform unaffiliated funds. Consistent with the conflict of interest hypothesis, we find that affiliated funds hold disproportionately large amounts of stocks of their initial public offering and seasoned equity offering clients. Moreover, worse-performing clients are more likely to be held by affiliated funds. Our results are robust to alternative risk adjustments, portfolio weighting schemes, and regression methodologies. Overall, our findings are consistent with the idea that investment banks use affiliated funds to support underwriting business at the expense of fund shareholders.

Our work provides refined tests of the source of merger gains in a neglected industry: utilities. Utilities offer fertile ground for analysis of traditional theories: synergy, collusion, hubris, and anticipation. Utility mergers create wealth for the combined firm, consistent with both the synergy and collusion hypotheses. To distinguish between these hypotheses, we study rival stock returns across dimensions related to collusion: deregulation, geography, and horizontal and withdrawn deals. We also find that the impact of mergers on consumer prices is consistent with synergy rather than collusion. Analysis of industry rivals that become targets also rejects collusion and is consistent with anticipation.

We investigate whether trades made by chief financial officers (CFOs) reveal more information about future stock returns than those by chief executive officers (CEOs). We find that CFOs earn statistically and economically higher abnormal returns following their purchases of company shares than CEOs. During 1992–2002, CFOs earned an average 12-month excess return that is 5% higher than that by CEOs. The superior performance by CFOs occurs notwithstanding controls for risk factors and persists even after their trades are publicly disclosed. Further analysis shows that CFO purchases are associated with more positive future earnings surprises than CEO purchases, suggesting that CFOs incorporate better information about future earnings.

In this paper we study the economic value and statistical significance of asset return predictability, based on a wide range of commonly used predictive variables. We assess the performance of dynamic, unconditionally efficient strategies, first studied by Hansen and Richard (1987) and Ferson and Siegel (2001), using a test that has both an intuitive economic interpretation and known statistical properties. We find that using the lagged term spread, credit spread, and inflation significantly improves the risk-return trade-off. Our strategies consistently outperform efficient buy-and-hold strategies, both in and out of sample, and they also incur lower transactions costs than traditional conditionally efficient strategies.

I analyze optimal loan modification schemes in a stochastic home price and stochastic interest-rate environment. Lenders maximize loan values by managing the borrower’s option to default on the loan and prepayment option. Given negative equity, controlling for the borrower’s ability to pay, rate reductions and maturity extensions result in a higher probability of redefault by homeowners even after modification of their loans. In contrast, loan write-downs (the Principal Principle), not a favored recipe, are value maximizing for the lender. A shared-appreciation mortgage enhances the ability to pay, mitigates adverse selection, and reduces the present value of expected deadweight foreclosure costs.

We track the dividend initiation (DI) decisions from a sample of 6,588 firms that went public during the period 1979–2005 and find that 873 of them initiated dividends. Our primary objective is to determine whether information signaling can explain the DI decision. We find that variables suggested by the dividend-signaling models of John and Williams (1985) and Allen, Bernardo, and Welch (2000) are significant determinants of the DI decision and the associated announcement-period stock price effect. We also find support for the residual, agency, tax, clientele, transaction costs, catering, and life-cycle explanations of dividend policy.

We examine the relation between mutual fund votes on shareholder executive compensation proposals and pension-related business ties between fund families and the firms. In unconditional tests, we find that fund families support management when they have pension ties to the firm. We find no relation when we stratify by fund family in conditional tests, which suggests that fund families with pension ties vote with management at both client and nonclient firms. We confirm this result in an analysis of nonclient firms. Overall, our results suggest that pension-related business ties influence fund families to vote with management at all firms.