Knowledge that Transforms

What explains cross-sectional dispersion in stock valuation ratios? We find that 75% of dispersion in price–earnings ratios is reflected in differences in future returns, while only 25% is reflected in differences in future earnings growth. This holds at both the portfolio-level and the firm-level. We reconcile these conclusions with previous literature which has found a strong relation between prices and future profitability. Our results support models in which the cross-section of price–earnings ratios is driven mainly by discount rates or mispricing rather than future earnings growth. Evaluating six models of the value premium, we find that most models struggle to match our results; however, models with long-lived differences in risk exposure or gradual learning about parameters perform the best. The lack of earnings growth differences at long horizons provides new evidence in favor of long-run return predictability. We also show a similar dominance of predicted returns for explaining the dispersion in return surprises.

We study how investors respond to inflation combining a customized survey experiment with trading data at a time of historically high inflation. Investors’ beliefs about the stock return–inflation relation are very heterogeneous in the cross section and on average too optimistic. Moreover, many investors appear unaware of inflation-hedging strategies despite being otherwise well-informed about prevailing inflation rates and asset returns. Consequently, whereas exogenous shifts in inflation expectations do not impact return expectations, information on past returns during periods of high inflation leads to negative updating about the perceived stock-return impact of inflation, which feeds into return expectations and subsequent actual trading behavior.

I show that as a portfolio’s value concentration increases, actively managed portfolios predictably trim large positions, maintaining a level of practical diversification. This rebalancing channel is concentrated at thresholds implied by regulatory guidelines and by a fund’s own risk management histories. Since larger stocks are typically held widely and in large weights, they experience a coordinated contrarian trading demand that originates from this form of risk management. Diversification driven demand captures a novel return-reversal pattern in the large stock portfolios. Compensating this source of demand accentuates momentum returns during the modern sample period (1990 to 2022).

We devise a simple model of liquidity demand and supply to study dealers’ liquidity provision in currency markets . Drawing on a globally representative data set of currency trading volumes, we show that at times when dealers’ intermediation capacity is constrained the cost of liquidity provision increases disproportionately relative to dealer-intermediated volume. Consequently, the otherwise strong and positive relation between liquidity costs and trading volume diminishes significantly when dealers face tighter Value-at-Risk limits or higher funding costs. Using various econometric approaches, we show that this nonlinear effect of dealer constraints on market liquidity primarily stems from a reduction in the elasticity of liquidity supply, rather than changes in liquidity demand.

Using a panel of self-declared benchmarks, we examine funds’ use of mismatched benchmarks over time. Mismatching is high at the beginning of our sample (45 % of TNA in 2008), consistent with prior studies, but declines significantly over time (27 % in 2020), driven by existing specialized funds changing benchmarks to match their style. Market forces including investor learning, institutional governance, market competition, and product positioning all play a role in benchmark correction decisions. For funds with difficult to categorize investment strategies, mismatched benchmarks are less associated with performance bias. Our study highlights the value of market solutions in aligning manager-investor interests.

We analyze optimal carbon pricing under financial constraints and endogenous climate-related transition and physical costs. The socially optimal emissions tax may be above or below a Pigouvian benchmark, depending on the strength of physical climate impacts on pledgeable resources. We derive necessary conditions for emissions taxes alone to implement a constrained-efficient allocation, and show a cap-and-trade system may dominate emissions taxes because it can be designed to have a less adverse effect on financial constraints. We also assess how capital structure, carbon price hedging markets, and socially responsible investors interact with emissions pricing, and evaluate other commonly used policy tools.

We study dealers’ bidding behavior in the Bank of England’s quantitative easing (QE) reverse auctions. Using a granular dataset on both accepted and rejected offers together with an equilibrium model of bidding behavior, we estimate dealers’ valuations of securities offered to the Bank of England. We also recover the rents accruing to dealers from participating in the auctions as opposed to liquidating gilts in the secondary market, thereby possibly causing prices to change. These rents or so-called ”liquidity benefits” are largest in the early phases of QE implemented during the Global Financial Crisis, suggesting that QE may be particularly effective in restoring smooth market functioning when market participants are facing large liquidity shocks. Finally, we document that dealers’ valuations vary significantly with the amount of interest rate risk acquired in the secondary gilt market before the auction and with dealers’ regulatory capital.

Rising interest rates can create “mortgage rate lock” for homeowners with fixed rate mortgages, who can hold onto their low rates as long as they stay in their homes but would have to take on new mortgages with higher rates if they moved. We show mobility rates fell in 2022 and 2023 for homeowners with mortgages, as market rates rose. We observe both absolute declines and declines relative to homeowners without mortgages, who are unaffected by mortgage rate lock. Mobility declines are not explained by changes in home values. Overall, our estimates imply that rising interest rates reduced mobility in 2022 and 2023 for households with mortgages by 16% and caused $20bn of deadweight loss.

We study how information disclosure concerns shape the choice of limited partners (LPs) by venture capitalists (VCs). Late-2002 court rulings prevented public LPs from providing confidentiality to investment managers. The best-performing VCs, but not other managers, responded by excluding public LPs from their new funds. Lost access reduced public LP returns by 1.6 billion relative to 14 billion of their VC commitments. Legislation reducing disclosure, contracts limiting information access, and added fund-of-funds intermediaries helped restore access. These changes focused on protecting portfolio company information, highlighting the importance of proprietary information for VC investing and the potential costs of transparency.

This paper studies banks’ investment in risk management human capital following the Global Financial Crisis and the advent of stress testing. Our results suggest that ‘Too Big to Fail’ distortions may have weakened large banks’ incentive to invest in risk management talent. Stress testing, which focuses on the largest banks, spurred demand for skilled quantitative risk managers, but only narrowly in anticipation of a test and following poor performance on a test. Stress testing does not affect demand for the over 90 % of risk management jobs not linked to passing tests, limiting its effectiveness in improving risk management practices.