Knowledge that Transforms

We provide novel evidence on gender differences in insider-trading behavior and the profitability of senior corporate executives. On average, both female and male executives make positive profits from insider trading. Males, however, earn significantly more than females in equivalent positions and also trade more than females. These gender differences disappear when we limit the sample to firms in which female trading is relatively high. Collectively, these results suggest that female executives have a disadvantage relative to males in access to inside information, even if they have equal formal status, and informal networks may play an important role in attenuating this disadvantage.

Theory predicts that capping brokers’ compensation exacerbates the exploitation of retail investors. We show that regulated caps on mutual fund 12b-1 fees, effectively sales commissions, are associated with negative equity fund performance, but only after a structural shift toward maximum permitted levels of the fees around 2000. Past this break point, flow–performance sensitivity shifts from the middle- to the highest-performing funds, suggesting that the fee cap increases performance-chasing behavior by constraining brokers’ incentives to learn about lower-ranked funds. The policy implication is that regulators must reevaluate the efficacy of caps on brokerage fees.

Does more competition lead to more information production and greater investment efficiency? This question is largely unexplored in the finance literature. This article provides both a model and a series of extensive empirical tests. The model features a 2-stage Bayesian game in differentiated products market competition. We find that competition causes firms to acquire less information and investments to become more inefficient relative to a first-best case with the same market structure. Empirically, the panel regression analysis provides strong support for the theory and shows that investment is more efficient in concentrated industries.

This study analyzes detailed minutes of board meetings of business companies in which the Israeli government holds a substantial equity interest. Boards with at least 3 directors of each gender are found to be at least 79% more active at board meetings than those without such representation. This phenomenon is driven by women directors in particular; they are more active when a critical mass of at least 3 women is in attendance. Gender-balanced boards are also more likely to replace underperforming chief executive officers (CEOs) and are particularly active during periods when CEOs are being replaced.

This article empirically examines the interaction between entrepreneurial plaintiff firm litigation and venture capital (VC). The data indicate that, relative to nonplaintiffs, firms that litigate prior to (after) obtaining VC i) receive financing from less (more) reputable venture capitalists (VCs), ii) are subject to greater (similar) oversight by VCs, iii) receive less (more) VC funding, iv) are more likely to exit through an initial public offering than through an acquisition, and v) are less likely to be liquidated when litigation occurs after VC financing. The results are robust to different specifications, methodologies, and endogeneity checks.

We compare the stock return forecasting performance of alternative payout yields. The net payout yield produces more accurate forecasts relative to alternatives, including the traditional dividend yield. This remains true even after excluding several years during the Great Depression when issuance was unusually high. The measure of cash flow used to form the yield matters economically. Long-term investors’ hedging demand for stock is considerably reduced when net payout, rather than dividends, serves as the cash-flow measure. An agent relying on an incorrect payout measure is willing to pay an economically significant “management fee” to switch to the optimal policy.

We study the role of domestic and global factors in the payoffs of portfolios mimicking carry, dollar-carry, and momentum strategies. Using factors summarizing large data sets of macroeconomic and financial variables, we find that global equity-market factors are predictive for carry-trade returns, whereas U.S. inflation and consumption variables drive dollar-carry-trade payoffs, momentum returns are predominantly driven by U.S. inflation factors, and global factors capture the countercyclical nature of currency premia. We also find predictability in the exchange-rate component of each strategy and demonstrate strong economic value for risk-averse investors with mean-variance preferences, regardless of base currency.

The low (high) abnormal returns of stocks with high (low) beta, which we refer to as the beta anomaly, is one of the most persistent anomalies in empirical asset pricing research. This article demonstrates that investors’ demand for lottery-like stocks is an important driver of the beta anomaly. The beta anomaly is no longer detected when beta-sorted portfolios are neutralized to lottery demand, regression specifications control for lottery demand, or factor models include a lottery demand factor. The beta anomaly is concentrated in stocks with low levels of institutional ownership and it exists only when the price impact of lottery demand is concentrated in high-beta stocks.

We find that firms headquartered in U.S. counties with higher levels of social capital incur lower bank loan spreads. This finding is robust to using organ donation as an alternative social capital measure and incremental to the effects of religiosity, corporate social responsibility, and tax avoidance. We identify the causal relation using companies with a social-capital-changing headquarters relocation. We also find that high-social-capital firms face loosened nonprice loan terms, incur lower at-issue bond spreads, and prefer public bonds over bank loans. We conclude that debt holders perceive social capital as providing environmental pressure that constrains opportunistic firm behaviors in debt contracting.

We design an experiment to test the hypothesis that, in violation of Bayes’ rule, some people respond more forcefully to the strength of information than to its weight. We provide incentives to motivate effort, use naturally occurring information, and control for risk attitude. We find that the strength–weight bias affects expectations but that its magnitude is significantly lower than originally reported. Controls for nonlinear utility further reduce the bias. Our results suggest that incentive compatibility and controls for risk attitude considerably affect inferences on errors in expectations.