Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT This paper documents “runs” on asset‐backed commercial paper (ABCP) programs in 2007. We find that one‐third of programs experienced a run within weeks of the onset of the ABCP crisis and that runs, as well as yields and maturities for new issues, were related to program‐level and macro‐financial risks. These findings are consistent with the asymmetric information framework used to explain banking panics, have implications for commercial paper investors’ degree of risk intolerance, and inform empirical predictions of recent papers on dynamic coordination failures.

ABSTRACT We propose a new method to model hedge fund risk exposures using relatively high‐frequency conditioning variables. In a large sample of funds, we find substantial evidence that hedge fund risk exposures vary across and within months, and that capturing within‐month variation is more important for hedge funds than for mutual funds. We consider different within‐month functional forms, and uncover patterns such as day‐of‐the‐month variation in risk exposures. We also find that changes in portfolio allocations, rather than in the risk exposures of the underlying assets, are the main drivers of hedge funds' risk exposure variation.

ABSTRACT We analyze government interventions to recapitalize a banking sector that restricts lending to firms because of debt overhang. We find that the efficient recapitalization program injects capital against preferred stock plus warrants and conditions implementation on sufficient bank participation. Preferred stock plus warrants reduces opportunistic participation by banks that do not require recapitalization, although conditional implementation limits free riding by banks that benefit from lower credit risk because of other banks’ participation. Efficient recapitalization is profitable if the benefits of lower aggregate credit risk exceed the cost of implicit transfers to bank debt holders.

ABSTRACT Alternative mortgage products have been identified by many as culprits in the financial crisis. However, because of their lower initial mortgage payments relative to loan amount, they may be a valuable tool for households that expect higher and more certain future labor income, and that wish to smooth consumption over the life‐cycle. Using U.K. household‐level panel data, this paper provides evidence in support of this hypothesis and highlights other important benefits of alternative mortgages, including portfolio diversification, tax benefits, and a reduction in the transaction costs incurred in housing transactions.

ABSTRACT Temporary deviations of trade prices from fundamental values impart bias to estimates of mean returns to individual securities, to differences in mean returns across portfolios, and to parameters estimated in return regressions. We consider a number of corrections, and show them to be effective under reasonable assumptions. In an application to the Center for Research in Security Prices monthly returns, the corrections indicate significant biases in uncorrected return premium estimates associated with an array of firm characteristics. The bias can be large in economic terms, for example, equal to 50% or more of the corrected estimate for firm size and share price.

ABSTRACT We perform an experimental study to assess the effect of complexity on asset trading. We find that higher complexity leads to increased price volatility, lower liquidity, and decreased trade efficiency especially when repeated bargaining takes place. However, the channel through which complexity acts is not simply due to the added noise induced by estimation error. Rather, complexity alters the bidding strategies used by traders, making them less inclined to trade, even when we control for estimation error across treatments. As such, it appears that adverse selection plays an important role in explaining the trading abnormalities caused by complexity.

ABSTRACT This paper studies the effect of sentiment on asset prices during the 20th century (1905 to 2005). As a proxy for sentiment, we use the fraction of positive and negative words in two columns of financial news from the New York Times . The main contribution of the paper is to show that, controlling for other well‐known time‐series patterns, the predictability of stock returns using news' content is concentrated in recessions. A one standard deviation shock to our news measure during recessions predicts a change in the conditional average return on the DJIA of 12 basis points over one day.

ABSTRACT Focusing on data from the United States and the United Kingdom, we document that both the anomaly identified by Backus and Smith, which concerns the low correlation between consumption differentials and exchange rates, and the forward premium anomaly, which concerns the tendency of high interest rate currencies to appreciate, have become more severe over time. Taking into account different capital mobility regimes, we show that these anomalies turn into general equilibrium regularities in a two‐country and two‐good economy with Epstein and Zin preferences, frictionless markets, and correlated long‐run growth prospects.

ABSTRACT Over the years, many asset pricing studies have employed the sample cross‐sectional regression (CSR) R 2 as a measure of model performance. We derive the asymptotic distribution of this statistic and develop associated model comparison tests, taking into account the impact of model misspecification on the variability of the CSR estimates. We encounter several examples of large R 2 differences that are not statistically significant. A version of the intertemporal capital asset pricing model (CAPM) exhibits the best overall performance, followed by the Fama–French three‐factor model. Interestingly, the performance of prominent consumption CAPMs is sensitive to variations in experimental design.

ABSTRACT Private equity funds pay particular attention to capital structure when executing leveraged buyouts, creating an interesting setting for examining capital structure theories. Using a large, international sample of buyouts from 1980 to 2008, we find that buyout leverage is unrelated to the cross‐sectional factors, suggested by traditional capital structure theories, that drive public firm leverage. Instead, variation in economy‐wide credit conditions is the main determinant of leverage in buyouts. Higher deal leverage is associated with higher transaction prices and lower buyout fund returns, suggesting that acquirers overpay when access to credit is easier.