Knowledge that Transforms

We examine the impact of changes in equity‐option margin requirements on the liquidity of options and underlying stock markets. We find that the decrease in margin was associated with an increase in spreads and trade informativeness, and a decrease in depth for the underlying stocks. In contrast, option spreads decreased indicating a change in the relative allocation of informed traders between the two markets. When the required margin was increased, no significant change was observed in the underlying stocks, but option spreads increased. Overall, our results indicate that uninformed traders are more sensitive to the margin dimension of trading costs.

This study examines differences in finance research productivity and influence across 661 academic institutions over the five‐year period from 1989 through 1993. We find that 40 institutions account for over 50 percent of all articles published by 16 leading journals over the five‐year period; 66 institutions account for two‐thirds of the articles. Influence is more skewed, with as few as 20 institutions accounting for 50 percent of all citations to articles in these journals. The number of publications and publication influence increase with faculty size and academic accreditation. Prestigious business schools are associated with high publication productivity and influence.

Recent research has documented the failure of market beta to capture the cross‐section of expected returns within the context of a two‐pass estimation methodology. However, the two‐pass methodology suffers from the errors‐in‐variables (EIV) problem that could attenuate the apparent significance of market beta. This article provides a new correction for the EIV problem that is robust to conditional heteroscedasticity. After the correction, I find more support for the role of market beta and less support for the role of firm size in explaining the cross‐section of expected returns. While the EIV correction leads to a diminished role of firm size, the size variable remains a significant force in explaining the cross‐section of expected returns.

After firms move trading in their stock to the American or New York Stock Exchanges, stock returns are generally poor. Although many listing firms issue equity around the time of listing, post‐listing performance is not entirely explained by the equity issuance puzzle. Similar to the conclusions regarding other long‐run phenomena, poor post‐listing performance appears related to managers timing their application for listing. Managers of smaller firms, where initial listing requirements may be more binding, tend to apply for listing before a decline in performance. Poor post‐listing performance is not observed in larger firms.

Part 1 Introduction: the financial services industry - depository institutions the financial services industry - insurance companies the financial service industry - securities firms and investment banks the financial services industry - mutual funds the financial services industry - finance companies why are financial intermediaries special risks of financial mediation. Part 2 Measuring risk: interest rate risk I interest rate risk II market risk credit risk - individual loan risk credit risk - loan portfolio and concentration risk foreign exchange risk sovereign risk liquidity risk. Part 3 Managing risk: liability and liquidity management deposit insurance and other liability guarantees capital adequacy product diversification geographic diversification - domestic geographic diversification - international futures and forwards options, caps, floors, and collars swaps, loan sales and other credit management techniques securitization.

Our examination of the cross-section of expected returns reveals economically and statistically significant compensation (about 6 to 9% per annum) for beta risk when betas are estimated from time-series regressions of annual portfolio returns on the annual return on the equal-weighted market index. The relation between book-to-market equity and returns is weaker than that in Fama and French (1992a). We conjecture that book-to-market results using COMPUSTAT data are affected by a selection bias and provide indirect evidence.

The Capital Asset Pricing Model implies that (i) the market portfolio is efficient and (ii) expected returns are linearly related to betas. Many do not view these implications as separate, since either implies the other, but we demonstrate that either can hold nearly perfectly while the other fails grossly. If the index portfolio is inefficient, then the coefficients and from an ordinary least squares regression of expected returns on betas can equal essentially any values and bear no relation to the index portfolio's mean‐variance location. That location does determine the outcome of a mean‐beta regression fitted by generalized least squares.

Recent empirical studies suggest that nominal interest rates and expected inflation do not move together one‐for‐one in the long run, a finding at odds with many theoretical models. This article shows that these results can be deceptive when the process followed by inflation shifts infrequently. We characterize the shifts in inflation by a Markov switching model. Based upon this model's forecasts, we reexamine the long‐run relationship between nominal interest rates and inflation. Interestingly, we are unable to reject the hypothesis that in the long run nominal interest rates reflect expected inflation one‐for‐one.

With transaction costs for trading goods, the nominal exchange rate moves within a band around the nominal purchasing power parity (PPP) value. We model the behavior of the band and of the exchange rate within the band. The model explains why there are below‐unity slope coefficients in regression tests of PPP, and why these increase toward unity under hyperinflation or with low‐frequency data. Our results are independent of the presence of nontraded goods in the economy.