Knowledge that Transforms

Abstract Covariances between aggregate stock returns and changes in bond yields change sign over time. Existing theories emphasize either time-varying properties of expected inflation or time-varying properties of real yields. Using revisions in survey forecasts as proxies for macroeconomic news, neither approach succeeds empirically. Inflation-centric models require much more news about expected future inflation than we observe from surveys. Real-centric models posit signs of covariances among macroeconomic news, changes in yields, and stock returns that do not match those in the data. In a nutshell, macroeconomic news appears to drive a substantial part of stock–bond comovement, but not in ways consistent with our theories.

Abstract We compare the growth and responsiveness to demand shocks of post-initial public offering (IPO) firms and their private counterparts. Using multiple measures of myopia and multiple ways to match IPO firms with private firms, we do not find evidence of myopic behavior by public firms. IPO firms respond more to investment opportunities and have higher productivity in their early public years. Our results on public firms’ sensitivity to growth opportunities hold under several robustness tests, including when we consider firms’ total growth including acquisitions. The results show the importance of matching public to private firms early in their life.

Abstract This article examines the impact of mainland Chinese buyers in the Hong Kong housing market, using complete transaction records between 2001 and 2017. We find that mainland buyers pay an average price premium of 1.4% compared with locals. The premiums are estimated to be 3.5% for large-sized luxury units and 1.6% for homes in central locations. The mechanisms that underlie the price premiums include a hedging effect, residential sorting, and information barriers, of which the hedging motive has the strongest impact. Mainland buyers’ price premiums rise significantly when the Chinese currency depreciates or China Economic Policy Uncertainty increases. Our study sheds light on the impact and mechanism of the ““China shock” on the global housing markets.

Abstract We construct a time series of news coverage about air pollution in China for the period 1977–2019. Our measure of abnormal news coverage (ANC) of China’s air pollution is uncorrelated with growth in economic activity or cyclical components of such activity, but strongly correlated with weather-related and atmospheric conditions known to cause air pollution. ANC is associated with more capital flight from China. Focusing on the USA as a destination country, we find that ANC is associated with more Chinese citizens emigrating to US regions with stronger ethnic links to China, and more international students enrolling in US institutions with stronger Chinese student links. US regions with stronger ethnic or educational ties to China experience higher property price growth when ANC is higher. Our study suggests that perception of local environmental risk can have major consequences for the cross-border reallocation of capital and labor.

Abstract Short sellers care about (i) how overvalued an asset is and (ii) when the overvaluation will be corrected. Hence, short selling costs should be higher over horizons when negative information is more likely to arrive. This article presents a model formalizing this intuition and tests the model using the put–call parity condition. Forward shorting costs predict future costs and stock returns, consistent with an expectations hypothesis in the shorting market. Additionally, an upward sloping term structure around earnings announcements increases the probability of a negative earnings surprise, evidence that short selling costs are higher over horizons when negative information is more likely to arrive. My findings suggest that the term structure of short selling costs conveys how long overpricings are expected to persist.

From 2007 to 2020, unlisted Chinese firms paid an average of over US $500 million to listed firms for their shell value in reverse merger transactions. We show that this large shadow price for a public listing sheds light on other features of Chinese markets, including (i) near-zero mortality rates, (ii) frequent major-asset restructurings (MARs), (iii) insensitivity of small-firm prices to corporate earnings, and (iv) a large size effect. A firm-level measure of expected shell probability (ESP) predicts stock returns, MARs, earnings-to-price sensitivity, and short-window returns to initial public offering-related regulatory news. Furthermore, adding ESP to existing pricing models for Chinese stocks significantly improves model performance.

Abstract We construct recursive solutions for, and study the properties of the dynamic equilibrium of an economy with three types of agents: (i) household/investors who supply labor with a finite elasticity, consume a large variety of goods that are not perfect substitutes and trade government bonds; (ii) firms that produce those varieties of goods, receive productivity shocks and set prices in a Calvo manner; (iii) a government that collects an income-driven fiscal surplus and acts mechanically, buying and selling bonds in accordance with a Taylor policy rule based on expected inflation. In this setting, we show that stock market returns are much less than one-for-one related to inflation over a 1-year holding period, which means that stock securities have a strong nominal character. We also show that their nominal character diminishes as the length of the stock-holding period increases, in accordance with empirical evidence.

Abstract At long horizons, multiplicative compounding induces strong-to-extreme positive skewness into stock returns; the magnitude of the effect is primarily determined by single-period volatility. Consequently, at horizons greater than 5 years, returns—individual or portfolio—will be positively skewed under reasonable parameterizations. From an investor perspective, the strong positive skewness implies that the mean compound return will serve as a poor guide for typical long-horizon outcomes. Moreover, the large effects of compounding on higher-order moments are shown to affect the validity of Taylor expansions used to approximate preferences for skewness, when applied to returns of annual or longer horizons.

Abstract We find that heightened cross-border bank flows are associated with lower systemic risk in a target country’s banking system. The reductions in systemic risk are stronger for flows coming from source countries with stronger regulatory oversight than the target country. Such cross-border bank flows linked to regulatory arbitrage are also associated with improvements in target banking sector profitability, asset quality, and efficiency. We assess several alternative channels of influence for cross-border bank flows but interpret the evidence on these flows as mostly consistent with a benign form of regulatory arbitrage.

Abstract Using micro-level data, we examine the behavior of socially responsible investment (SRI) funds. SRI funds select firms with lower pollution, more board diversity, higher employee satisfaction, and better workplace safety. Yet, both in the cross-section and using an exogenous shock to SRI capital, we find that SRI funds do not significantly change firm behavior. Moreover, we find little evidence that they try to impact firm behavior using shareholder proposals. Our results suggest that SRI funds are not greenwashing, but they are impact washing; they invest in a portfolio of firms with better environmental and social conduct but do not follow through on their promise of impact.