Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT Much of the extant literature predicts market returns with “simple” models that use only a few parameters. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we theoretically prove that simple models severely understate return predictability compared to “complex” models in which the number of parameters exceeds the number of observations. We empirically document the virtue of complexity in U.S. equity market return prediction. Our findings establish the rationale for modeling expected returns through machine learning.

ABSTRACT I present a model of consumption and savings for a multiperson household in which members are imperfectly altruistic, derive utility from both private and shared public goods, and share wealth. I show that, despite having standard exponential time preferences, the household is time‐inconsistent: Members save too little and overspend on private consumption goods. The household remains time‐inconsistent even when members save separately, because the possibility of voluntary transfers or joint contribution to the public good preserves the dynamic commons problem. The household will choose to share wealth when the risk‐sharing benefits outweigh the utility cost of overconsumption.

ABSTRACT We decompose mutual fund value added by the length of funds' holdings using transaction‐level data. We motivate our decomposition with a model featuring horizon‐specific investment ideas, where short‐term ideas are less scalable because the associated trades cannot be spread over time. Fund turnover correlates negatively with the horizon over which value is added and positively with price impact costs. As predicted, holdings of high‐turnover funds add a substantial amount of value in the first two weeks, of which more than 80% is earned on Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and earnings announcement days. Holdings of low‐turnover funds add value only over longer horizons.

ABSTRACT The prevalence of pay based on risky firm outcomes for nonexecutive workers presents a puzzling departure from conventional contract theory, which predicts insurance provision by the firm. When workers at the same firm compete against each other for promotions, the optimal contract features pay based on firm outcomes as insurance against promotion risk. The model's predictions are consistent with many observed phenomena, such as performance‐based vesting and overvaluation of equity pay by nonexecutive workers. It also generates novel predictions linking a firm's hierarchy to its workers' pay structure.

ABSTRACT Market‐wide circuit breakers are trading halts aimed at stabilizing the market during dramatic price declines. Using an intertemporal equilibrium model, we show that a circuit breaker significantly alters market dynamics and affects investor welfare. As the market approaches the circuit breaker, price volatility rises drastically, accelerating the chance of triggering the circuit breaker—the so‐called “magnet effect,” returns exhibit increasing negative skewness, and trading activity spikes up. Our empirical analysis supports the model's predictions. Circuit breakers can affect overall welfare negatively or positively, depending on the relative significance of investors' trading motives for risk sharing versus irrational speculation.

ABSTRACT Using detailed account‐level data, this paper explores how financial sophistication affects consumers' spending responses to changes in income. I document that, controlling for liquidity, financially unsophisticated consumers display significant spending responses to predictable decreases in their disposable income. Furthermore, they have lower savings rates, fewer liquid savings, and higher debt‐to‐income ratios, leaving them more exposed to income shocks. Robustness tests, supported by anecdotal survey evidence, indicate that these results are driven by some consumers' lack of financial sophistication and their consequent failure to understand their financial contracts, rather than by random idiosyncratic shocks, rational liquidity management, or optimal inattention.

ABSTRACT We show that multinational firms transmit shocks across countries through their internal capital markets. We study a credit supply shock to parent firms in Germany. International affiliates outside Germany supported their parents through internal lending, became financially constrained themselves, and experienced lower real growth. We find that managers were “Darwinist” with respect to international affiliates but “Socialist” in the home country, that internal capital markets transmitted the credit shock more strongly than a nonfinancial shock, and that access to developed credit markets attenuated the real effects. The total real impact of shock transmission through multinationals on foreign economies was large.

ABSTRACT We investigate hedge fund firms’ unobserved performance (UP), measured as the risk‐adjusted return difference between a firm's reported gross return and its portfolio return inferred from its disclosed long‐equity holdings. Firms with high UP outperform those with low UP by 6.36% per annum on a risk‐adjusted basis. UP is negatively associated with a firm's trading costs and positively associated with intraquarter trading in equity positions, derivatives usage, short selling, and confidential holdings. We show that limited investor attention can delay investors’ response to UP and lead to longer lived predictability of fund firm performance.

ABSTRACT This paper estimates the effect of news positioning on the speed of price discovery, using exogenous variation in prominent (“front‐page”) positioning of news articles on the Bloomberg terminal. Front‐page articles see 240% higher trading volume and 176% larger absolute excess returns during the first 10 minutes after publication than equally important non‐front‐page articles. Overall, the information in front‐page articles is fully incorporated into prices within an hour of publication. The response to non‐front‐page information of similar importance eventually converges but takes more than two days to be fully reflected in prices.

ABSTRACT We study the effects of broadband internet use on the investment decisions of individual investors. A public program in Norway provides plausibly exogenous variation in internet use. Our instrumental variables estimates show that internet use causes a substantial increase in stock market participation, driven primarily by increased fund ownership. Existing investors tilt their portfolios toward funds, thereby obtaining more diversified portfolios and higher Sharpe ratios, and do not increase their trading activity in stocks. Overall, access to high‐speed internet spurs a “democratization of finance,” with individuals making investment decisions that are more in line with the advice from portfolio theory.