We investigate why new, high-risk technologies can attract excessive and often unprofitable investment. We develop an equilibrium model in which rational, risk-averse agents overinvest in a risky technology, possibly to the point that its expected return is negative. Overinvestment results from relative wealth concerns which arise endogenously from the imperfect tradability of future endowments. Competition over future consumption leads to an indirect utility for wealth with “keeping up with the Joneses” properties that can induce herding. Because overinvestment increases with the risk of the technology, our model can explain why new, risky technological innovations may promote investment bubbles

Using distinct features of corporate bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs), I find that financial innovation has a significant and long-term positive valuation impact on the systemically important underlying securities. A one standard deviation increase in ETF ownership reduces high-yield and investment-grade bond spreads by 20.3 and 9.2 basis points, respectively, implying an average monthly price increase of 1.03% and 0.75%. Two novel quasi-natural experiments exploit exogenous changes in ETF eligibility to confirm the effect. Examining theoretical explanations for the effect, I find that ETFs decrease liquidity trader participation, increase institutional ownership, and insignificantly or negatively impact the liquidity of individual bonds

We investigate the market's reaction to original-issue deep discount (OID) bonds, which are issued at prices well below par and with coupons set below the market rate. Until July 1982 OID debt offered large tax advantages. Before that date stock-price responses to announcements of OID debt are significantly positive, in contrast to the negative, albeit insignificant, responses associated with par debt announcements. No stock-price gains are observed for OID debt issued after the tax advantages are removed. We conclude that in 1981–82 opportunities provided by financial innovation offset the negative information effects typically associated with debt-financing announcements

We examine the notion that financial products which cater to investors’ behavioral biases can yield high trading activity and thus be profitable for issuers. Our setting considers options with a callback feature, namely, callable bull/bear contracts (CBBCs). Such contracts have high skewness when close to callback and thus appeal to cumulative prospect theory preferences. CBBCs with high skewness earn negative average returns, and issuers’ gross profits vary positively with CBBC skewness. Over the 2009–2014 period, issuers earn gross profits of about $1.67 billion by trading CBBCs on the Hang Seng Index. These findings highlight the role of behavioral finance in financial innovation

The offering prices of 64 issues of a popular retail structured equity product were, on average, almost 8% greater than estimates of the products' fair market values obtained using option pricing methods. Under reasonable assumptions about the underlying stocks' expected returns, the mean expected return estimate on the structured products is slightly below zero. The products do not provide tax, liquidity, or other benefits, and it is difficult to rationalize their purchase by informed rational investors. Our findings are, however, consistent with the recent hypothesis that issuing firms might shroud some aspects of innovative securities or introduce complexity to exploit uninformed investors

This paper empirically investigates the effect of “informed finance” on technological change. The theoretical literature offers conflicting predictions on whether the information of financiers fosters or inhibits firms’ innovation. Using data from a sample of Italian manufacturing firms, we find that the information of firms’ main banks, proxied by the duration of credit relationships, promotes innovation. This positive effect is economically and statistically more significant for product than for process innovations. Nonetheless, the role of relationship banks in innovation is quite unsophisticated: they do not foster internal research but rather fund the relevant investments that the introduction and acquisition of new technologies entails

This paper examines whether the firm-level accrual and cash flow effects extend to the aggregate stock market. In sharp contrast to previous firm-level findings, aggregate accruals is a strong positive time series predictor of aggregate stock returns, and cash flows is a negative predictor. In addition, innovations in accruals are negatively contemporaneously correlated with aggregate returns, and innovations in cash flows are positively correlated with returns. These findings suggest that innovations in accruals and cash flows contain information about changes in discount rates, or that firms manage earnings in response to marketwide undervaluation

Recent complex financial products sold to households contradict the basic premise of canonical innovation theories: Financial innovation benefits its adopters. In my 2006–2015 sample of over 28,000 yield enhancement products (YEP), the securities offer attractive yields but negative returns. The products lose money both ex ante and ex post due to their embedded fees. On average, YEPs charge 6–7% in annual fees and subsequently lose 6–7% relative to risk-adjusted benchmarks. Simple and cheap combinations of listed options often statewise dominate YEPs. Competition, disclosure, or learning do not eliminate this inferior financial innovation over my sample period

The Mississippi Bubble, South Sea Bubble and the Dutch Windhandel of 1720 together represent the world's first global financial bubble. We hand-collect cross-sectional price data and investor account data from 1720 to test theories about market bubbles. Our tests suggest that innovation was a key driver of bubble expectations. We present evidence against the currently prevailing debt-for-equity conversion hypothesis and relate stock returns to innovations in Atlantic trade and insurance. We find evidence consistent with the innovation-driven bubble dynamics documented by Pastor and Veronesi (2009) for new economy stocks. Our evidence seems inconsistent with clientele-based theories that emphasize bubble-riding and short-sales restrictions

We study asset-pricing implications of innovation in a general-equilibrium overlapping-generations economy. Innovation increases the competitive pressure on existing firms and workers, reducing the profits of existing firms and eroding the human capital of older workers. Due to the lack of inter-generational risk sharing, innovation creates a systematic risk factor, which we call “displacement risk.” This risk helps explain several empirical patterns, including the existence of the growth-value factor in returns, the value premium, and the high equity premium. We assess the magnitude of displacement risk using estimates of inter-cohort consumption differences across households and find support for the model