Knowledge that Transforms

We analyze the impact of share repurchases on liquidity based on a new comprehensive data set of realized share repurchases in the US, which covers 50,204 repurchase months between 2004 and 2010. Using instrumental variable analysis, we show that repurchases unequivocally improve liquidity and suggest that endogenous controls have confounded results in earlier studies. Liquidity also influences how firms execute repurchase programs. Repurchases provide liquidity when other investors sell the firm's stock or in times of crisis. No evidence exists that firms reduce liquidity when they trade on private information.

Credit analysts often leave rating agencies to work at firms they rate. We use benchmark rating agencies as counterfactuals to measure rating inflation in a difference-in-differences framework and find that transitioning analysts award inflated ratings to their future employers before switching jobs. We find no evidence that analysts inflate ratings of other firms they rate. Market based measures of hiring firms' credit quality further indicate that transitioning analysts' inflated ratings become less informative. We conclude that conflicts of interest at the analyst level distort credit ratings. More broadly, our results shed light on the economic consequences of revolving doors.

A standard real options model predicts a strong positive interaction effect between research and development (R&D) investment and product market competition. R&D-intensive firms tend to be riskier and earn higher expected returns than R&D-weak firms, particularly in competitive industries. Also, firms in competitive industries earn higher expected returns than firms in concentrated industries, especially among R&D-intensive firms. Intuitively, R&D projects are more likely to fail in the presence of more competition because rival firms could win the innovation race. Empirical evidence largely supports the model׳s predictions.

We investigate the volatility of firms’ assets in contrast to existing studies that focus on equity volatility. We estimate asset volatility using a comprehensive data set on the market values of corporate security returns. We find significant differences between the properties of equity and asset volatilities with implications for several important areas of finance. First, financial leverage has a large influence on equity volatility. Second, leverage and asset volatility have permanent and transitory effects, respectively, on equity volatility, helping explain the short- and long-run dynamics of equity volatility. Third, we analyze and compare the cross-section of asset versus equity returns.

Abstract This study examines how initial public offering (IPO) pricing is affected by the pipeline of deals in registration, measured at the underwriter level. Examining IPOs from 2002 to 2013, we find evidence that measures of the IPO bookrunner's pipeline significantly affect pricing decisions. The evidence is mostly consistent with market power and agency theories, which argue that underwriters use a young or growing pipeline to push for higher IPO first day returns.

How do the distance constraints faced by lenders in acquiring borrower information affect the design of bank loan contracts? Theoretical studies posit that greater information asymmetry leads to the allocation of stronger ex ante decision rights to the lender (the uninformed party). Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that, upon inception, contracts tend to be more restrictive when firms seek loans from remote lenders. This finding is robust to potential endogeneity bias and simultaneity of various loan terms. Overall, we establish a strong informational link between distance and loan contract design.

Using a sample of state pension funds’ equity holdings, we find evidence of not only local bias, but also bias towards politically-connected stocks. Political bias is detrimental to fund performance. State pension funds have longer holding durations of politically-connected local firms and display disposition behavior in these positions. Political bias is positively related to the percentage of politically-affiliated trustees on the board and Congressional connections. The more politically-affiliated trustees on the board, the more the fund shifts toward risky asset allocations. Overall, our results imply that political bias is likely costly to taxpayers and pension beneficiaries.

Using differences in regulation as a means of identification, we find that a reduction in local financial intermediation capacity reduces the recovery rates on assets of failing banks. It also depresses local land prices and is associated with subsequent distress in nearby banks. Fire sales appear to be one channel through which lower local intermediation capacity reduces the recovery rates on failed banks’ assets. The paper provides a rationale for why bank failures are contagious, and why the value of specialized financial assets could depend on the size of the intermediary market that is available to buy it.

Surprisingly little is known about the business cycle dynamics of leverage. The existing evidence documents that target leverage evolves pro-cyclically either for all firms or financially constrained ones. In contrast, we show that, on average, target leverage ratios evolve counter-cyclically once cyclicality is measured comprehensively, accounting for variation in explanatory variables and model parameters. These counter-cyclical dynamics are robust to different subsamples of firms, data samples, empirical models of leverage, and definitions of leverage. There is a fraction of 10–25% of firms with pro-cyclical dynamics whose characteristics are consistent with counter-cyclical dynamics for loss-given-default and probability of default.

This paper examines the extent to which individual investors provide liquidity to the stock market and whether they are compensated for doing so. We show that the ability of aggregate retail order imbalances, contrarian in nature, to predict short-term future returns is significantly enhanced during times of market stress, when market liquidity provisions decline. While a weekly rebalanced portfolio long in stocks purchased and short in stocks sold by retail investors delivers 19% annualized excess returns over a four-factor model from 2002 to 2010, it delivers up to 40% annualized returns in periods of high uncertainty. Despite this high aggregate performance, individual investors do not reap the rewards from liquidity provision because they experience a negative return on the day of their trade and they reverse their trades long after the excess returns from liquidity provision are dissipated. During the financial crisis, French active retail stock traders stepped up to the plate, increased stock holdings, and provided liquidity. In contrast, mutual fund investors fled from delegation by selling their mutual funds.