Knowledge that Transforms

We explore why insiders engage in informed trading, given the surprisingly small average insider returns reported in the literature and the potential costs involved. We begin by proposing a model of an insider's decision to engage in insider trading. We then empirically test the model's predictions using archival data of corporate insiders in Sweden. Consistent with the model, we find that less wealthy insiders are more likely to time their insider selling, and to sell in greater magnitudes, prior to abnormal price declines than wealthy insiders. We also find that less wealthy insiders with lower risk aversion as measured by their criminal behavior are particularly prone to timing their selling to avoid price declines.

We find evidence that the leadership of overconfident chief executive officers (CEOs) induces stakeholders to take actions that contribute to the leader's vision. By being intentionally overexposed to the idiosyncratic risk of their firms, overconfident CEOs exhibit a strong belief in their firms’ prospects. This belief attracts suppliers beyond the firm's observable expansionary corporate activities. Overconfident CEOs induce more supplier commitments including greater relationship-specific investment and longer relationship duration. Overconfident CEOs also induce stronger labor commitments as employees exhibit lower turnover rates and greater ownership of company stock in benefit plans.

We provide evidence that security design reflects the interplay of capital supplier and security issuer preferences. While call provisions have historically been the default option in convertible security design, only a minority of post-2005 issues are callable. Because hedge funds dominate the market for new convertibles today and because convertible arbitrage is less risky without callability, the recent diminution in the frequency of call provisions in new convertible bond issues illustrates the importance of the preferences of the suppliers of capital in security design.

An overlapping generations model with investors having heterogeneous investment horizons leads to a two-factor asset pricing model. The risk premiums are determined by the exposure to the market (myopic betas) and the future return on the efficient portfolio (non-myopic betas), which is identified nonparametrically from equilibrium. Non-myopic betas are priced in the cross-section of stocks, producing increasing and economically significant risk-return relation. In the model with funding constraints, low non-myopic beta stocks deliver higher risk-adjusted returns. Empirically, a betting against non-myopic beta portfolio generates superior performance relative to common factor models and is negatively correlated with the market betting against beta portfolio.

I explore the effect of the threat posed by low-cost competitors on debt structure in the airline industry. I use the route network expansion of low-cost airlines to identify routes where the probability of future entry increases dramatically. I find that when a large portion of their market is threatened, incumbents significantly increase debt maturity before entry occurs. Overall, the main findings suggest that airlines respond to entry threats trading off the benefits of short-term financing for lower rollover risk. The results are consistent with models in which firms set their optimal debt structure in the presence of costly rollover failure.

The more the target knows about the bidder, the more difficult is paying the target with overpriced bidder shares. Thus, when bidders are opportunistic, the fraction of stock in the deal payment will be lower for better informed targets. We test this intuitive prediction against the alternative that stock payments primarily reflect bidder concerns with target adverse selection, which implies a greater fraction of stock in the deal payment for better informed targets. Discriminating between these two mutually exclusive and nested predictions requires measures of target information about the bidder but not of market mispricing. We find that public bidders systematically use more stock in the payment when the target knows more about the bidder. Tests exploiting exogenous variation in bidder market-to-book ratios also fail to support bidder opportunism. Finally, greater potential competition from private bidders is associated with greater propensity for public bidders to pay in cash.

This paper focuses on funds of funds (FOFs) as a form of financial intermediation in private equity (both buyout and venture capital). After accounting for fees, FOFs provide returns equal to or above public market indices for both buyout and venture capital. While FOFs focusing on buyouts outperform public markets, they underperform direct fund investment strategies in buyout. In contrast, the average performance of FOFs in venture capital is on a par with results from direct venture fund investing. This suggests that FOFs in venture capital (but not in buyouts) are able to identify and access superior performing funds.

We examine the effect of introducing credit default swaps (CDSs) on firm value. Our model allows for dynamic investment and financing, and bondholders can trade in the CDS market. The model incorporates both negative and positive effects of CDSs. CDS markets lead to more liquidations, but they also reduce the probability of costly debt renegotiation and reduce costly equity financing. After calibrating the model, we find that firm value increases by 2.9% on average with the introduction of a CDS market. Firms also invest more and increase leverage. The effect on firm value is strongest for small, financially constrained, and low productivity firms.

This paper considers the nature of returns to scale in active management following Pástor et al. (2015) who fail to establish diseconomies of scale at the fund level. Using an enhanced empirical strategy, we find a significant negative impact of fund size on performance. This empirical evidence indicates that fund alpha and fund size are not independent entities. Consequently, skill, rather than being measured by the fund alpha, should be measured by the value that a fund extracts from capital markets. We also show that there exist sophisticated investors who correctly exploit positive net present value investment opportunities.

The frequency with which firms adjust output prices helps explain persistent differences in capital structure across firms. Unconditionally, the most flexible-price firms have a 19% higher long-term leverage ratio than the most sticky-price firms, controlling for known determinants of capital structure. Sticky-price firms increased leverage more than flexible-price firms following the staggered implementation of bank deregulation across states and over time, which we use in a difference-in-differences strategy. Firms’ frequency of price adjustment did not change around the deregulation.