Knowledge that Transforms

I document a dramatic increase in the importance of two types of variation in Treasury bill yields beginning in the early 1980s. The first is idiosyncratic variation in individual short‐maturity (less than three months) bill yields. The second is a common component in Treasury bill yields that is not shared by yields on other instruments, such as short‐maturity privately‐issued instruments or longer‐maturity Treasury notes and bonds. Some evidence suggests the first type reflects increased market segmentation. These results have important implications for the calibration and testing of no‐arbitrage term structure models and interpreting tests of the expectations hypothesis.

Most empirical studies of the static CAPM assume that betas remain constant over time and that the return on the value-weighted portfolio of all stocks is a proxy for the return on aggregate wealth. The general consensus is that the static CAPM is unable to explain satisfactorily the cross-section of average returns on stocks. We assume that the CAPM holds in a conditional sense, i.e., betas and the market risk premium vary over time. We include the return on human capital when measuring the return on aggregate wealth. Our specification performs well in explaining the cross-section of average returns.

Capital requirements linked solely to credit risk are shown to increase equilibrium credit rationing and lower aggregate lending. The model predicts that the bank's decision to lend will cause an abnormal runup in the borrower's stock price and that this reaction will be greater the more capital-constrained the bank. I provide empirical support for this prediction. The model explains the recent inability of the Federal Reserve to stimulate bank lending by increasing the money supply. I show that increasing the money supply can either raise or lower lending when capital requirements are linked only to credit risk.

We investigate the nature and magnitude of short‐selling activity around seasoned equity offerings, the relation between short‐selling activity and issue discounts, and the consequences of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC's) adoption of Rule 10b‐21 in response to concerns about manipulative short‐selling practices. Seasoned offerings are characterized by abnormally high levels of short selling and option open interest. Higher levels of such activity are related to lower expected proceeds from the issuance of new shares. Where it could not be circumvented, Rule 10b‐21 appears to have curbed short‐selling activity and reduced issue discounts.

Modeling Fixed Income Securities and Interest Rate Options, Third Edition presents the basics of fixed-income securities in a way that, unlike competitive texts, requires a minimum of prerequisites. While other books focus heavily institutional details of the bond market, all of which could easily be learned on the job, the third edition of this classic textbook is more focused with presenting a coherent theoretical framework for understanding all basic models. The author’s unified approach—the Heath Jarrow Morton model—under which all other models are presented as special cases, enhances understanding of the material. The author’s pricing model is widely used in today’s securities industry. This new edition offers many updates to align with advances in the research and requires a minimum of prerequisites while presenting the basics of fixed-income securities. Highlights of the Third Edition Chapters 1-16 completely updated to align with advances in research Thoroughly eliminates out-of-date material while advancing the presentation Includes an ample amount of exercises and examples throughout the text which illustrate key concepts .

This paper examines the determinants of the mix of private and public debt using detailed information on the debt structure of 250 publicly traded corporations from 1980 through 1990. We find that the relationship between bank borrowing and the importance of growth opportunities depends on the number of banks the firm uses and whether the firm has public debt outstanding. For firms with a single bank relationship, the reliance on bank debt is negatively related to the importance of growth opportunities. In contrast, among firms borrowing from multiple banks, the relationship is positive.

Purchased order flow refers to the practice of dealers or trading locales paying brokers for retail order flow. It is alleged that such agreements are used to “cream skim” uninformed liquidity trades, leaving the information-based trades to established markets. We develop a test of this hypothesis, using a model of the stochastic process of trades. We then estimate the model for a sample of stocks known to be used in order purchase agreements that trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Cincinnati Stock Exchange. Our main empirical result is that there is a significant difference in the information content of orders executed in New York and Cincinnati, and that this difference is consistant with cream-skimming.

This article examines whether reducing a market's transparency, by delaying the publication of prices for block trades, has any impact on liquidity. The analysis uses a sample of 5987 blocks from the London Stock Exchange that cover three different publication regimes: immediate (1987/88), 90 minutes (1991/92), and 24 hours (1989/90). Delaying publication does not affect the time taken by prices to reach a new level, which is rapid under all regimes. Spreads differ across years, but their size relates more closely to market volatility than to speed of publication. There is therefore no gain in liquidity from delayed publication.