Time-preference shocks affect agents’ preferences for assets with different durations. We consider longevity risk as a source of time-preference shocks and model it in the recursive preferences setting. This implies a consumption-based three-factor model, including longevity risk, consumption growth rate, and the market portfolio, where longevity has a negative price of risk. Empirically, this model explains many well-known cross-sectional portfolios. Notably, we find that longevity risk and the momentum factor share a common business cycle component, i.e., short-run consumption risks. Prior winners (losers) provide hedging against mortality (longevity) risk and thus have higher (lower) expected returns, because winners have higher dividend growth and shorter equity durations than losers. Time-varying longevity risk captures most momentum profits over time, including the large momentum crashes observed in the data.

We introduce new semi-parametric models for the analysis of rates and proportions, such as proportions of default, (expected) loss-given-default and credit conversion factor encountered in credit risk analysis. These models are especially convenient for the stress test exercises demanded in the current prudential regulation. We show that the Least Impulse Response Estimator, which minimizes the estimated effect of a stress, leads to consistent parameter estimates. The new models with their associated estimation method are compared with the other approaches currently proposed in the literature such as the beta and logistic regressions. The approach is illustrated by both simulation experiments and the case study of a retail P2P lending portfolio.

We evaluate Eugene F. Fama's claim that stock prices do not exhibit price bubbles. Based on US industry returns (1926‒2014) and international sector returns (1985‒2014), we present four findings (1) Fama is correct in that a sharp price increase of an industry portfolio does not, on average, predict unusually low returns going forward; (2) such sharp price increases predict a substantially heightened probability of a crash but not of a further price boom; (3) attributes of the price run-up, including volatility, turnover, issuance, and the price path of the run-up, help forecast an eventual crash; and (4) these attributes also help forecast future returns. Results hold similarly in US and international samples.

We study real-efficiency implications of disclosing public information in a model with multiple dimensions of uncertainty where market prices convey information to a real decision maker. Paradoxically, when disclosure concerns a variable that the real decision maker cares to learn about, disclosure negatively affects price informativeness, and in markets that are effective in aggregating private information, this negative price-informativeness effect can dominate so that better disclosure negatively impacts real efficiency. When disclosure concerns a variable that the real decision maker already knows much about, disclosure always improves price informativeness and real efficiency. Our analysis has important empirical and policy implications for different contexts such as disclosure of stress test information and regulation of credit ratings.

We propose a theory of security design in financing entrepreneurial production, positing that the investor can acquire costly information on the entrepreneur’s project before making the financing decision. When the entrepreneur has enough bargaining power in security design, the optimal security helps incentivize both efficient information acquisition and efficient financing. Debt is optimal when information is not very valuable for production, whereas the combination of debt and equity is optimal when information is valuable. If, instead, the investor has sufficiently strong bargaining power in security design or can acquire information only after financing, equity is optimal

We analyze the relation between insider trading and the networks of executive and non-executive directors in UK listed companies. While most existing studies focus on firm-specific private information, we find that non-firm-specific information – such as information on other companies and information on industry and market trends – plays an important role in insider trading behavior and performance. Well-connected directors trade shares less frequently and for smaller values. However, their transactions are more profitable, especially when they make consecutive opportunistic purchases in the multiple companies on whose boards they sit. Taken together, well-connected directors are likely to outperform their peers with inferior connections.

This study defines the aggregate analyst recommendation for a country as the value-weighted average of all outstanding recommendations for shares of firms incorporated in that country. We show that country-level analyst recommendations predict international stock market returns. A trading strategy based on country-level recommendations yields an abnormal return of around 1% per month. Aggregate recommendations also help to predict changes in gross domestic product and aggregate earnings surprises. Overall, we find that country-level analyst recommendations provide useful information to predict future aggregate cash flows and associated market returns across different countries.

We develop a dynamic model with time variation in external equity financing costs and show that variation in these costs is important for the model to quantitatively capture the joint dynamics of firms’ asset prices, real quantities, and financial flows in the U.S. economy. Growth firms and high investment firms are less risky in equilibrium, because they can substitute more easily debt financing for equity financing when it becomes more costly to raise external equity, which are high marginal utility states. Using a model-implied proxy of aggregate equity issuance cost shocks, we provide empirical support for the model’s economic mechanism. Received August 7, 2017; editorial decision September 24, 2018 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.

This paper documents an anomaly in privately-placed stock returns in China and provides an explanation based on deliberate interest transfers. Using a sample of private investments in public equity (PIPEs) with lock-up periods ending between 2007 and 2015, we find that stocks with price inversion (unlock-date price lower than the issuing price) generate higher short-term returns post lock-up period than other stocks, and the greater the degree of price inversion, the better the short-term returns. This anomaly cannot be explained by the effects of price reversal, investors' under-reaction to companies' prospects, or improved governance after PIPEs. Rather, it reflects the interests transferred by issuing firms to participating investors via means including aggressive earnings management and dividend increase, given the unique regulations on PIPEs in China. Interest transfer is particularly pronounced if local investors participate in a PIPE, but sound corporate governance can restrain it.