Knowledge that Transforms

We test whether the home bias in equity portfolios is caused by investors trying to hedge inflation risk. The empirical evidence is consistent with this motive only if investors have very high levels of risk tolerance and equity returns are negatively correlated with domestic inflation. We then develop a model of international portfolio choice and equity market equilibrium that integrates inflation risk and deadweight costs. Using this model we estimate the levels of costs required to generate the observed home bias in portfolios consistent with different levels of risk aversion. For a level of risk aversion consistent with standard estimates of the domestic equity market risk premium, these costs are about a few percent per annum, greater than observable costs such as withholding taxes. Thus, the home bias cannot be explained by either inflation hedging or direct observable costs of international investment unless investors have very low levels of risk aversion.

We model firms' choice between bank loans and publicly traded debt, allowing for debt renegotiation in the event of financial distress. Entrepreneurs, with private information about their probability of financial distress, borrow from banks (multiperiod players) or issue bonds to implement projects. If a firm is in financial distress, lenders devote a certain amount of resources (unobservable to entrepreneurs) to evaluate whether to liquidate the firm or to renegotiate its debt. We demonstrate that banks' desire to acquire a reputation for making the 'right' renegotiation versus liquidation decision provides them an endogenous incentive to devote a larger amount of resources than bondholders toward such evaluations. In equilibrium, bank loans dominate bonds from the point of view of minimizing inefficient liquidation,. however, firms with a lower probability of financial distress choose bonds over bank loans.

We test the empirical implications of several models of IPO underpricing. Consistent with the winner’s-curse hypothesis, we show that in markets where investors know a priori that they do not have to compete with informed investors, IPOs are not underpriced. We also show that IPOs underwritten by reputable investment banks experience significantly less underpricing and perform significantly better in the long run. We do not find empirical support for the signaling models that try to explain why firms underprice. In fact, we find that (1) firms that underprice more return to the reissue market less frequently, and for lesser amounts, than firms that underprice less, and (2) firms that underprice less experience higher earnings and pay higher dividends, contrary to the models’ predictions.

We show that the positive volatility-volume relation documented by numerous researchers actually reflects the positive relation between volatility and the number of transactions. Thus, it is the occurrence of transactions per se, and not their size, that generates volatility; trade size has no information beyond that contained in the frequency of transactions. Our results suggest that theoretical research needs to entertain scenarios in which (1) both the frequency and size of trades are endogenously determined, yet (2) the size of trades has no information content beyond that contained in the number of transactions. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.

This article investigates empirically how returns and volatilities of stock indices are correlated between the Tokyo and New York markets. Using intradaily data that define daytime and overnight returns for both markets, we find that Tokyo (New York) daytime returns are correlated with New York (Tokyo) overnight returns. We interpret this result as evidence that information revealed during the trading hours of one market has a global impact on the returns of the other market. In order to extract the global factor from the daytime returns of one market, we propose and estimate a signal extraction model with GARCH processes.

The use of analyst forecasts as proxies for investors' earnings expectations is commonplace in empirical research. An implicit assumption behind their use is that they reflect analysts' private information in an unbiased manner. As demonstrated here, this assumption is not necessarily valid. There is shown to be a tendency for analysts to release forecasts closer to prior earnings expectations than is appropriate, given their information. Further, analysts exhibit herding behavior, whereby they release forecasts similar to those previously announced by other analysts, even when this is not justified by their information. These results are shown to have interesting empirical implications. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.

I study the large premium (82 percent) attributed to voting shares on the Milan Stock Exchange. The premium varies according to the ownership structure and the concentration of the voting rights, and it can be rationalized in the presence of enormous private benefits of control. A case study seems to indicate that in Italy private benefits of control can easily be worth more than 60 percent of the value of nonvoting equity. A tentative explanation for these findings is provided. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.

[We analyze the introduction of a nonredundant option, which completes the markets, and the effects of this on information revelation and risk sharing. The option alters the interaction between liquidity and insider trading. We find that the option mitigates the market breakdown problem created by the combination of market incompleteness and asymmetric information. The introduction of the option has ambiguous consequences on the informational efficiency of the market. On the one hand, by avoiding market breakdown, it enables trades to occur and convey information. On the other hand, the introduction of the option enlarges the set of trading strategies the insider can follow. This can make it more difficult for the market makers to interpret the information content of trades and consequently can reduce the informational efficiency of the market. The introduction of the option also has an ambiguous effect on the profitability of insider trades, which can either increase or decrease depending on parameter values.]

[Cross-holding occurs when listed corporations own securities issued by other corporations. We analyze the effect of cross-holdings on market capitalization and return measures as well as implications for econometric testing of asset pricing theories. We show that cross-holdings generally distort standard market return and risk measures. The magnitudes of such distortions are calculated for simulated economies by using a variety of cross-holding patterns. In addition, cross-holdings are shown to induce nonstationarity in the covariance matrix of security returns. We examine the effect of this nonstationarity for estimating efficient frontiers and factor structures. We also discuss the implications for risk-return estimates in equilibrium asset pricing models.]

[We show that the positive volatility-volume relation documented by numerous researchers actually reflects the positive relation between volatility and the number of transactions. Thus, it is the occurrence of transactions per se, and not their size, that generates volatility; trade size has no information beyond that contained in the frequency of transactions. Our results suggest that theoretical research needs to entertain scenarios in which (i) both the frequency and size of trades are endogenously determined, yet (ii) the size of trades has no information content beyond that contained in the number of transactions.]