Knowledge that Transforms

We document that the first and third cross-sectional moments of the distribution of GDP growth rates made by professional forecasters can predict equity excess returns, a finding that is robust to controlling for a large set of well-established predictive factors. We show that introducing time-varying skewness in the distribution of expected growth prospects in an otherwise standard endowment economy can substantially increase the model-implied equity Sharpe ratios, and produce a large amount of fluctuation in equity risk premiums.

Shareholder voting on corporate acquisitions is controversial. In most countries, acquisition decisions are delegated to boards, and shareholder approval is discretionary, which makes existing empirical studies inconclusive. We study the U.K. setting in which shareholder approval is imposed exogenously via a threshold test that provides strong identification. U.K. shareholders gain 8 cents per dollar at announcement with mandatory voting, or 13.6 billion over 1992-2010 in aggregate; without voting, U.K. shareholders lost 3 billion. Multidimensional regression discontinuity analysis supports a causal interpretation. The evidence suggests that mandatory voting imposes a binding constraint on acquirer chief executive officers.

In the literature, there is no consensus on a common approach to measure bond liquidity. This paper is the first to comprehensively compare all commonly employed liquidity measures based on intraday and daily data for the U.S. corporate bond market. We find that high-frequency measures based on intraday data are very strongly correlated, implying that previous results should be robust regarding the chosen measure. Most low-frequency proxies based on daily data generally also measure transaction costs well. However, three proxies clearly take the lead: Corwin and Schultz's (2012) high-low spread estimator, Roll's (1984) measure, and Hasbrouck's (2009) Gibbs measure.

Firm values can substantially change between the time deal terms are set and the actual deal closing, risking renegotiation, or termination. We find increases in market volatility decrease subsequent deal activity, but only for public targets subject to an interim period. The effect is strongest when volatility is highest, for deals taking longer to close, and for larger targets. Merging parties attempt to shorten the interim window as risk increases. Firmand industry-level uncertainty measures reveal similar findings, ruling out an unobserved macro variable. We conclude interim uncertainty contributes to understanding the timing and intensity of public firms' merger activity.

Young Americans are heavily reliant on debt and have clear financial literacy shortcomings. In this paper, we study the effects of exposure to financial training on debt outcomes in early adulthood among a large and representative sample of young Americans. Variation in exposure to financial training comes from statewide changes in high school graduation requirements. Using a flexible event study approach, we find that both mathematics and financial education, by and large, decrease reliance on nonstudent debt and improve repayment behavior. Economics training, on the other hand, increases both the likelihood of holding outstanding debt and the prevalence of repayment difficulties.

We quantify the real effects of the bank-lending channel exploiting the dramatic liquidity drought in interbank markets that followed the 2007 financial crisis as a source of variation in credit supply. Using a large sample of matched firm–bank data from Italy, we find had the interbank market not collapsed, investment expenditure would have been more than 20% higher and would have increased by around 30 cents per additional euro of available credit at the average firm. We also find that credit shocks affect the firm's value added, employment and input purchases, and propagate through firms' trade credit chains.

A firm chooses its debt maturity structure and default timing dynamically, both without commitment. Via the fraction of newly issued short-term bonds, equity holders control the maturity structure, which affects their endogenous default decision. A shortening equilibrium with accelerated default emerges when cash flows deteriorate over time so that debt recovery is higher if default occurs earlier. Self-enforcing shortening and lengthening equilibria may coexist, with the latter possibly Pareto dominating the former. The inability to commit to issuance policies can worsen the Leland problem of the inability to commit to a default policy-a self-fulfilling shortening spiral and adverse default policy may arise.

We show that a global imbalance risk factor that captures the spread in countries' external imbalances and their propensity to issue external liabilities in foreign currency explains the cross-sectional variation in currency excess returns. The economic intuition is simple: net debtor countries offer a currency risk premium to compensate investors willing to finance negative external imbalances because their currencies depreciate in bad times. This mechanism is consistent with exchange rate theory based on capital flows in imperfect financial markets. We also find that the global imbalance factor is priced in cross-sections of other major asset markets.

Using survey-based measures of mutual fund manager loss aversion, we study the effects of institutional investor preferences on their investment decisions, performance, and career outcomes. We find that managers with higher aversion to losses choose portfolios with lower downside risk, increase their risk-taking more in response to poor past performance, and display a stronger disposition effect. Further, we provide evidence that managers who are more loss-averse have lower performance and are more likely to have their contracts terminated.

We study the after-trading-cost performance of anomalies and the effectiveness of transaction cost mitigation techniques. Introducing a buy/hold spread, with more stringent requirements for establishing positions than for maintaining them, is the most effective cost mitigation technique. Most anomalies with less than 50% turnover per month generate significant net spreads when designed to mitigate transaction costs; few with higher turnover do. The extent to which new capital reduces strategy profitability is inversely related to turnover, and strategies based on size, value, and profitability have the greatest capacity to support new capital. Transaction costs always reduce strategy profitability, increasing data-snooping concerns.