Knowledge that Transforms

We introduce and study the main properties of a class of convex risk measures that refine Expected Shortfall by simultaneously controlling the expected losses associated with different portions of the tail distribution. The corresponding adjusted Expected Shortfalls quantify risk as the minimum amount of capital that has to be raised and injected into a financial position X to ensure that Expected Shortfall ESp(X) does not exceed a pre-specified threshold g(p) for every probability level p∈[0,1]. Through the choice of the benchmark risk profile g one can tailor the risk assessment to the specific application of interest. We devote special attention to the study of risk profiles defined by the Expected Shortfall of a benchmark random loss, in which case our risk measures are intimately linked to second-order stochastic dominance.

We propose an aggregate 52-week high ratio (AH52) to proxy for scarcity of investor attention and show that AH52 positively predicts future momentum profits. The momentum strategy is profitable as one standard deviation increase in AH52 raises momentum profits by 0.90% per month. AH52 subsumes the predictive power of well-documented market state variables such as market illiquidity, market volatility, and down market state. A timing strategy based on AH52 exhibits a higher annualized Sharpe ratio than that of a passive buy-and-hold strategy. The predictive power of AH52 is robust across market capitalizations, sub-periods, alternative measures of aggregate 52-week high, G7 countries, the inclusion of market-wide information, and various momentum strategies.

COVID-19 has temporarily changed the relative costs and benefits of different payment methods: cash has become more costly in terms of health risks, ease of use and likelihood of acceptance, whereas debit card usage has become less costly. As a result, consumers have shifted away from cash. Based on unique daily payment diary survey data collected between January 2018 and December 2021 amongst a representative panel of Dutch consumers, we study the shift in payment behaviour and payment preferences during two lockdown periods in the Netherlands in 2020 and 2021. Since the start of the first lockdown the likelihood of debit card usage at the expense of cash has increased by 12 percentage points compared to its trend level. About 60 percent of this shift on top of the autonomous trend persisted several months after the end of the first lockdown and part of it has persisted several months after the end of the second lockdown. The results indicate that the pandemic accelerated the increased usage of debit card at the POS, especially during the first pandemic year. Also, the pandemic has resulted in a shift in payment preferences towards more contactless payments. Both effects are largest for elderly people.

We study the impact of disclosure about bank fundamentals on depositors’ behavior in the presence (and absence) of economic linkages between financial institutions. Using a controlled laboratory environment, we identify under which conditions disclosure is conducive to bank stability. We find that bank deposits are sensitive to perceived bank performance. While banks with strong fundamentals benefit from more precise disclosure, an opposite effect is present for solvent banks with weaker fundamentals. Depositors take information about economic linkages into account and correctly identify when disclosure about one institution conveys meaningful information for others. Our findings suggest potential costs of bank transparency and that disclosure may not always be stability-enhancing.

We examine the impact of blockholder board representation on a borrower's bank loan contract terms and find it is associated with lower spreads and fewer negative covenants. When examining the potential channels behind the relationship, we find that blockholder-directors who take dedicated monitoring roles, as opposed to the short-term or confrontational positions often associated with activist shareholders, drive the overall relationship. The findings, which are robust to alternative model specifications and explanations, suggest that blockholder-directors can serve as substitute monitors to debtholders when their incentives are aligned. The results also highlight the heterogeneity among blockholders who actively influence the management process.

We analytically compare two dominant methodologies for the construction of an ESG factor: the time-series (ratings used to sort stocks) and cross-sectional (ratings used to weight stocks) approaches. Differences in ESG rating and exposure to other firm characteristics imply an ex ante expected return spread between the two factors. We construct a cross-sectional factor (i) featuring a targeted rating, thus allowing comparability with other factors, (ii) neutralizing exposure to other firm characteristics, and (iii) not harming diversification through stock screening. Using ratings from several data vendors, we document strong variations of the factor alpha in the time series and across vendors. The conditional alpha is negatively related to the level of media attention for ESG and positively related to variations in media attention.

We propose direct multiple time series models for predicting high dimensional vectors of observable realized global minimum variance portfolio (GMVP) weights computed based on high-frequency intraday returns. We apply Lasso regression techniques, develop a class of multiple AR(FI)MA models for realized GMVP weights, suggest suitable model restrictions, propose M-type estimators and derive the statistical properties of these estimators. In the empirical analysis for portfolios of 225 stocks from the S&P 500 we find that our direct models effectively minimize either statistical or economic forecasting losses both in- and out-of-sample as compared to relevant alternative approaches.

We study the joint effects of uncertainty and investment spikes on corporate leverage adjustments. In our baseline finding we show that, while uncertainty has a nontrivial adjustment speed effect for overlevered firms, underlevered firms are not greatly impacted. In our second baseline finding, we document asymmetric effects of investment spikes on the adjustment speed between overlevered and underlevered firms. Specifically, during the investment-spike period, underlevered firms adjust their leverage very promptly, whereas overlevered firms tend to adjust their leverage much more slowly. Bringing these two baseline analyses together in a combined analysis, conditional on the level of uncertainty, the investment regime has asymmetric effects between overlevered and underlevered firms. Specifically, when uncertainty is fixed, regardless of whether uncertainty is high or low, overlevered firms facing investment spikes tend to adjust their leverage slower than their non-spike counterparts, but underlevered firms facing investment spikes tend to adjust their leverage substantially faster than their non-spike counterparts. Further, we find that elevated uncertainty uniformly increases the speed of adjustment for overlevered firms without investment spikes, but the influence for underlevered firms without investment spikes is much less evident.

This paper examines the optimal incentive scheme in motivating people to innovate under ambiguity. When an innovation’s prospects are ambiguous, the use of extrinsic, high-powered incentives can lead the agent’s beliefs about the project’s outcome to deviate from that of the principal’s, which consequently deters innovation. The deterrent effect, however, is alleviated for firms in which agents have strong intrinsic incentives to adhere to firms’ goals and missions. In equilibrium, extrinsic and intrinsic incentives are complementary, and firms that face greater uncertainty invest more in fostering intrinsic incentives. Hence, firms that pursue more exploratory and radical innovation invest more in creating corporate identity and culture.

This paper examines the impact of product failures on the pricing of bank loans using hand-collected data on product recalls. We find that banks tend to charge higher loan prices for firms involved in product recalls. Uncertainty as to a recall's ultimate impact on a firm's credit risk conditions banks’ loan-pricing reaction, as reflected in a firm's default risk, information asymmetry and governance deficiency, and by the damage to its reputation, arising from the recall. Further analysis reveals that the impact of product recalls on the cost of debt is stronger in firms that rely more extensively on bank financing, firms with more severe recalls, and those adopting passive recall strategies. However, medical device firms, for which product recalls are often considered a normal part of doing business, do not experience a rise in their bank financing costs following a recall. Finally, we find that recall firms experience a deterioration in their financial performance and a rise in product lawsuits post recall. Overall, our findings shed new light on the economic consequences of product failures through the lens of creditors.