Knowledge that Transforms

The composite measures of investment performance: the reward-to-variability index, by Sharpe ([29], [30]) and Lintner [23], and the reward-to-volatility index, by Treynor [33], were developed after Markowitz ([24], [25]) and Tobin [32] popularized the mean-variance framework of analyzing the problems of certain investments. Since these are ex ante measures they are not directly applicable to the evaluation of ex post performance. A theoretical basis for doing so has been provided by Jensen ([17], [18]) who also developed another composite performance measure, the predictability index. In practice, these composite measures have been found to have problems. Foremost, they have been observed to exhibit systematic biases. Various causes of the biases have been proposed. These are: the existence of unequal lending and borrowing rates, the failure to consider higher moments of return distributions, and the elusive “true” holding period.

The widespread notion that dollar-cost averaging can help an investor minimize the risk of investing all of one's capital in the market at an inappropriate time is aptly stated by Malkiel [4, p. 242]:Periodic investments of equal dollar amounts in common stocks can substantially reduce (but not avoid) the risks of equity investment by insuring that the entire portfolio of stocks will not be purchased at temporarily inflated prices. The investor who makes equal dollar investments will buy fewer shares when prices are high and more shares when prices are low.

Jerome B. Baesel, Garry R. Stein, The Value of Information: Inferences from the Profitability of Insider Trading, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 553-571

In a recent article Fabozzi and Francis [3] presented the results of empirical tests designed to determine if the regression coefficients of the single-index market model were significantly different in bull and bear markets. Using three alternative definitions of bull and bear markets, Fabozzi and Francis (FF) concluded the coefficients of the single-index market model were not significantly different in the two types of markets.

Since the publication of the work of Modigliani and Miller (MM) in the late 1950s there has been a recurrent controversy in the finance and economics literature about the interdependence of investment and financial variables. The arguments are too well known to recount at any length here. Basically MM would argue that in perfect capital markets, investment is, and should be independent of financing (which we will identify, as they would, with financial variables like dividends and new debt). The opposing view would argue that capital markets are sufficiently imperfect that the firm must consider financing in its investment decision. At least some of the proponents of this other view would argue that the firm must raise funds and allocate these scarce funds between investment and dividends. This view, then, holds that the firm's investment, dividend, and financing decisions are interdependent and must be studied in the context of a simultaneous equation model. There have been many articles discussing the MM position and many attempts to test it empirically. The first to focus directly on the question of interest here was done by Dhrymes and Kurz [1] in 1967. We will attempt to show that, despite several later studies, Dhrymes and Kurz were correct in their assertion that the investment and financing decisions are made simultaneously and must be studied in the context of a simultaneous equation model. To set the stage for our study we shall review the Dhrymes-Kurz study and subsequent related studies and show that each contained some error that affected their results.

The solution to the problem of portfolio choice is relevant in a positive financial economics context because it provides models of individual maximizing behavior which when aggregated to the level of the market provide models of equilibrium asset pricing. These models generally assume that the parameters of the probability distribution of security returns are known to individual investors. In practice, however, the individual has to estimate these parameters. To the extent that there is parameter uncertainty or “estimation risk”, what are the observable implications of a market equilibrium derived on the assumption that the information set of all investors is equivalent to a given set of sample data?

The phenomenal growth in corporate merger activity of the 1960s revived interest in the motives and effects relating to corporate mergers. In recent years, many theories for explaining mergers have been discussed and tested in the literature of finance, law, and economics. Various authors have argued that motives for merger include increased market power [15, 21, 23], achievement of operating or managerial scale economies [2, 8], diversification [6], tax reduction [19], growth maximization [14, 16], and bankruptcy avoidance [7, 10, 12, 13]. The bankruptcy avoidance motive is perhaps the most recently articulated of all merger motives, and perhaps the only one for which no systematic attempts at empirical validation have been forthcoming.

In his 1976 Presidential Address to the American Finance Association, Merton Miller provided a compelling argument that there currently exists no viable theory of the optimal capital structure of an individual firm. This argument follows from the critique he presented of existing models of capital structure and from the theory he outlined of the optimal aggregate capital structure of the economy as a whole. That theory depends on the existence of different marginal tax rates for individuals and a tax-free security. Professor Miller pointed out that he was motivated to develop his hypothesis by the apparent inadequacy of a (if not the most) popular explanation for capital structure at both the micro and the aggregate level: the tradeoff between the tax advantages of debt and the cost to the firm's security holders of the bankruptcy process. He observed that neither the tax advantage of debt nor the costs of bankruptcy may be quite what they seem at first glance. When the corporate income tax and the differential taxation of regular income and capital gains are taken into account, then the tax advantage of debt is reduced. Moreover, the limited empirical evidence from actual bankruptcies suggests that the real costs to security holders of bankruptcy may be really rather low. And the recent discussion by Haugen and Senbet [6] suggests that most of the costs attributed to bankruptcy are really costs of liquidation of the firm's assets and not relevant to the capital structure decision.