Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT We investigate the relation between global foreign exchange (FX) volatility risk and the cross section of excess returns arising from popular strategies that borrow in low interest rate currencies and invest in high interest rate currencies, so‐called “carry trades.” We find that high interest rate currencies are negatively related to innovations in global FX volatility, and thus deliver low returns in times of unexpected high volatility, when low interest rate currencies provide a hedge by yielding positive returns. Furthermore, we show that volatility risk dominates liquidity risk and our volatility risk proxy also performs well for pricing returns of other portfolios.

ABSTRACT We show that firms intermediating trade have incentives to overinvest in financial expertise. In our model, expertise improves firms’ ability to estimate value when trading a security. Expertise creates asymmetric information, which, under normal circumstances, works to the advantage of the expert as it deters opportunistic bargaining by counterparties. This advantage is neutralized in equilibrium, however, by offsetting investments by competitors. Moreover, when volatility rises the adverse selection created by expertise triggers breakdowns in liquidity, destroying gains to trade and thus the benefits that firms hope to gain through high levels of expertise.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether improvements in the firm's internal corporate governance create value for shareholders. We analyze the market reaction to governance proposals that pass or fail by a small margin of votes in annual meetings. This provides a clean causal estimate that deals with the endogeneity of internal governance rules. We find that passing a proposal leads to significant positive abnormal returns. Adopting one governance proposal increases shareholder value by 2.8%. The market reaction is larger in firms with more antitakeover provisions, higher institutional ownership, and stronger investor activism for proposals sponsored by institutions. In addition, we find that acquisitions and capital expenditures decline and long‐term performance improves.

ABSTRACT Are some banks prone to perform poorly during crises? If yes, why? In this paper, we show that a bank's stock return performance during the 1998 crisis predicts its stock return performance and probability of failure during the recent financial crisis. This effect is economically large. Our findings are consistent with persistence in a bank's risk culture and/or aspects of its business model that make its performance sensitive to crises. Banks that relied more on short‐term funding, had more leverage, and grew more are more likely to be banks that performed poorly in both crises.

ABSTRACT We exploit a unique data set to study individual characteristics of CEO candidates for companies involved in buyout and venture capital transactions and relate these characteristics to subsequent corporate performance. CEO candidates vary along two primary dimensions: one that captures general ability and another that contrasts communication and interpersonal skills with execution skills. We find that subsequent performance is positively related to general ability and execution skills. The findings expand our view of CEO characteristics and types relative to previous studies.

ABSTRACT Our model shows that deterioration in debt market liquidity leads to an increase in not only the liquidity premium of corporate bonds but also credit risk. The latter effect originates from firms' debt rollover. When liquidity deterioration causes a firm to suffer losses in rolling over its maturing debt, equity holders bear the losses while maturing debt holders are paid in full. This conflict leads the firm to default at a higher fundamental threshold. Our model demonstrates an intricate interaction between the liquidity premium and default premium and highlights the role of short‐term debt in exacerbating rollover risk.

ABSTRACT Public policy discussions typically favor greater corporate disclosure as a way to reduce firms' agency problems. This argument is incomplete because it overlooks that better disclosure regimes can also aggravate agency problems and related costs, including executive compensation. Consequently, a point can exist beyond which additional disclosure decreases firm value. Holding all else equal, we further show that larger firms will adopt stricter disclosure rules than smaller firms and firms with better disclosure will employ more able management. We show that mandated increases in disclosure could, in part, explain recent increases in both CEO compensation and CEO turnover rates.

ABSTRACT High‐powered incentives may induce higher managerial effort, but they also expose managers to idiosyncratic risk. If managers are risk averse, they might underinvest when firm‐specific uncertainty increases, leading to suboptimal investment decisions from the perspective of well‐diversified shareholders. We empirically document that, when idiosyncratic risk rises, firm investment falls, and more so when managers own a larger fraction of the firm. This negative effect of managerial risk aversion on investment is mitigated if executives are compensated with options rather than with shares or if institutional investors form a large part of the shareholder base.

ABSTRACT Using a measure of contract strictness based on the probability of a covenant violation, I investigate how lender‐specific shocks impact the strictness of the loan contract that a borrower receives. Banks write tighter contracts than their peers after suffering payment defaults to their own loan portfolios, even when defaulting borrowers are in different industries and geographic regions from the current borrower. The effects persist after controlling for bank capitalization, although bank equity compression is also associated with tighter contracts. The evidence suggests that recent defaults inform the lender's perception of its own screening ability, thereby impacting its contracting behavior.

ABSTRACT Mutual funds are held by investors in taxable and tax‐qualified retirement accounts. We investigate whether the characteristics, investment strategies, and performance of mutual funds held by these diverse tax clienteles differ. Examining both mutual fund distributions and mutual fund holdings, we find that funds held primarily by taxable investors choose investment strategies that result in lower tax burdens than funds held primarily in tax‐qualified accounts. Despite these differences, we find no evidence that any investment constraints that may arise from these tax‐efficient investment strategies result in performance differences between funds held by different tax clienteles.