Knowledge that Transforms

Expectations theories of asset returns may be interpreted either as stating that risk premia are zero or that they are constant through time. Under the former interpretation, different versions of the expectations theory of the term structure are inconsistent with one another, but I show that this does not necessarily carry over to the constant risk premium interpretation of the theory. I present a general equilibrium example in which different types of risk premium are constant through time and dependent only on maturity. Furthermore, I argue that differences among expectations theories are second‐order effects of bond yield variability. I develop an approximate linearized framework for analysis of the term structure in which these differences disappear, and I test its accuracy in practice using data from the CRSP government bond tapes.

This paper presents a methodology for arriving at empirical estimates of deposit insurance premiums from market data by using isomorphic relationships between equity and a call option, and insurance and a put option. The data utilizes the market value of equity to solve for the asset value and its volatility. Market perceptions of FDIC bailout policies are explicitly modeled so as to eliminate the bias in inverted values of assets and their volatility. Sensitivity analyses are performed to show that rank orderings based on premiums are robust to changes in specification, thus facilitating allocation of aggregate premium across banks.

This paper reviews the theory of futures option pricing and tests the valuation principles on transaction prices from the S&P 500 equity futures option market. The American futures option valuation equations are shown to generate mispricing errors which are systematically related to the degree the option is in‐the‐money and to the option's time to expiration. The models are also shown to generate abnormal risk‐adjusted rates of return after transaction costs. The joint hypothesis that the American futures option pricing models are correctly specified and that the S&P 500 futures option market is efficient is refuted, at least for the sample period January 28, 1983 through December 30, 1983.

This paper provides an equilibrium model in which expected real returns on common stocks are negatively related to expected inflation and money growth. It is shown that the fall in real wealth associated with an increase in expected inflation decreases the real rate of interest and the expected real rate of return of the market portfolio. The expected real rate of return of the market portfolio falls less, for a given increase in expected inflation, when the increase in expected inflation is caused by an increase in money growth rather than by a worsening of the investment opportunity set. The model has empirical implications for the effect of a change in expected inflation on the cross‐sectional distribution of asset returns and can help to understand why assets whose return covaries positively with expected inflation may have lower expected returns. The model also agrees with explanations advanced by Fama [5] and Geske and Roll [10] for the negative relation between stock returns and inflation.

This paper examines differences in announcement day effects among firms engaged in voluntary sell‐offs. While, on average, an initial sell‐off announcement results in a significant positive excess return, not all divestiture announcements are accompanied by positive price movements. Dividing the sample into two subsamples based on whether the transaction price is announced shows that the announcement day effect is significantly positive for the price group but not statistically different from zero for the no‐price group. In addition, a positive relation is found between the relative size of the sell‐off and the announcement day return.

In this article we examine the information content in analysts' recommendations which are made on a five‐point buy, hold, or sell scale. Our data set includes data on 10,000 forecasts per month. Unlike most prior studies, our data set does not suffer from selection or survivorship bias. We find information in analysts' changes in recommendations. Approximately 4.5% extra return can be earned by purchasing new buys rather than new sells.

This paper employs a new approach to study the effects of option trading on the behavior of underlying stock prices. Extant research compares distributional properties of the stock price at two points in time divided by an event in the option market that might affect price behavior. As an alternative, we examine the stock price adjustment to the release of quarterly earnings using samples of firms with and without listed options. We find the two samples exhibit different adjustment processes, with the nonoption firms requiring substantially more time to adjust.

A discrete‐time option‐pricing model is used to derive the “fair” rate of return for the property‐liability insurance firm. The rationale for the use of this model is that the financial claims of shareholders, policyholders, and tax authorities can be modeled as European options written on the income generated by the insurer's asset portfolio. This portfolio consists mostly of traded financial assets and is therefore relatively easy to value. By setting the value of the shareholders' option equal to the initial surplus, an implicit solution for the fair insurance price may be derived. Unlike previous insurance regulatory models, this approach addresses the ruin probability of the insurer, as well as nonlinear tax effects.

In this paper, we test the arbitrage pricing theory (APT) in an international setting. Inter‐battery factor analysis is used to estimate the international common factors and the Chow test is used in testing the validity of the APT. Our inter‐battery factor analysis results show that the number of common factors between a pair of countries ranges from one to five, and our cross‐sectional test results lead us to reject the joint hypothesis that the international capital market is integrated and that the APT is internationally valid. Our results, however, do not rule out the possibility that the APT holds locally or regionally in segmented capital markets. Finally, the basic results of both the inter‐battery factor analysis and the cross‐sectional tests are largely invariant to the numeraire currency chosen.