Knowledge that Transforms

The proliferation of novel preference theories in financial economics is hampered by a lack of non-experimental evidence and by the theories' additional complexity which has not been shown to be critical in applications. In this article I present arguments in support of preferences with rank dependency. Using the Survey of Consumer Finances data, I document two widespread patterns inconsistent with expected utility: (i) many households simultaneously invest in well-deversified funds and in poorly-diversified portfolios of stocks; and (ii) some households with substantial savings do not invest anything in equities. I show that portfolio choice models with rank-dependent preferences, plausibly parameterized and under fully rational assumptions, are quantitatively consistent with the observed diversification. These results call for further efforts to integrate the models of rank-dependent preferences in portfolio theory and asset pricing. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

This article provides an empirical decomposition of the default, liquidity, and tax factors that determine expected corporate bond returns. In particular, the risk premium associated with a default event is estimated. The intensity-based model is estimated using bond price data for 104 US firms and historical default rates. Significant risk premia on common intensity factors and important tax and liquidity effects are found. These components go a long way towards explaining the level of expected corporate bond returns. Adding a positive default event risk premium helps to explain the remaining error, although this premium cannot be estimated with high statistical precision. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

We examine the optimal dynamic portfolio decisions for investors who acquire housing services from either renting or owning a house. Our results show that when indifferent between owning and renting, investors owning a house hold a lower equity proportion in their net worth (bonds, stocks, and home equity), reflecting the substitution effect, yet hold a higher equity proportion in their liquid portfolios (bonds and stocks), reflecting the diversification effect. Furthermore, following the suboptimal policy of always renting leads investors to overweigh in stocks, while following the suboptimal policy of always owning a house causes investors to underweigh in stocks.

We investigate whether domestic investors have an edge over foreign investors in trading domestic stocks. Using Korean data, we show that foreign money managers pay more than domestic money managers when they buy and receive less when they sell for medium and large trades. The sample average daily trade-weighted disadvantage of foreign money managers is 21 basis points for purchases and 16 basis points for sales. There is also some evidence that domestic individual investors have an edge over foreign investors. The explanation for these results is that prices move more against foreign investors than against domestic investors before trades.

We estimate parameters of standard stock selection and market timing models using daily mutual fund returns and quarterly measurement periods. We then rank funds quarterly by abnormal return and measure the performance of each decile the following quarter. The average abnormal return of the top decile in the post-ranking quarter is 39 basis points. The post-ranking abnormal return disappears when funds are evaluated over longer periods. These results suggest that superior performance is a short-lived phenomenon that is observable only when funds are evaluated several times a year.

We examine the importance of industry to firm-level financial and real decisions. We find that in addition to standard industry fixed effects, financial structure also depends on a firm's position within its industry. In competitive industries, a firm's financial leverage depends on its natural hedge (its proximity to the median industry capital--labor ratio), the actions of other firms in the industry, and its status as entrant, incumbent, or exiting firm. Financial leverage is higher and less dispersed in concentrated industries, where strategic debt interactions are also stronger, but a firm's natural hedge is not significant. Our results show that financial structure, technology, and risk are jointly determined within industries. These findings are consistent with recent industry equilibrium models of financial structure. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

In theory, the sum of squares of log returns sampled at high frequency estimates their variance. When market microstructure noise is present but unaccounted for, however, we show that the optimal sampling frequency is finite and derives its closed-form expression. But even with optimal sampling, using say 5-min returns when transactions are recorded every second, a vast amount of data is discarded, in contradiction to basic statistical principles. We demonstrate that modeling the noise and using all the data is a better solution, even if one misspecifies the noise distribution. So the answer is: sample as often as possible.

I show that investment in housing plays a crucial role in explaining the patterns of cross-sectional variation in the composition of wealth and the level of stockholdings observed in portfolio composition data. Due to investment in housing, younger and poorer investors have limited financial wealth to invest in stocks, which reduces the benefits of equity market participation. House price risk crowds out stockholdings, and this crowding out effect is larger for low financial net-worth. In the model as in the data leverage is positively correlated with stockholdings. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

We parsimoniously characterize the severity of market frictions affecting a stock using the delay with which its price responds to information. The most delayed firms command a large return premium not explained by size, liquidity, or microstructure effects. Moreover, delay captures part of the size effect, idiosyncratic risk is priced only among the most delayed firms, and earnings drift is monotonically increasing in delay. Frictions associated with investor recognition appear most responsible for the delay effect. The very small segment of delayed firms, comprising only 0.02% of the market, generates substantial variation in average returns, highlighting the importance of frictions.

This article solves a realistically calibrated life cycle model of consumption and portfolio choice with non-tradable labor income and borrowing constraints. Since labor income substitutes for riskless asset holdings, the optimal share invested in equities is roughly decreasing over life. We compute a measure of the importance of human capital for investment behavior. We find that ignoring labor income generates large utility costs, while the cost of ignoring only its risk is an order of magnitude smaller, except when we allow for a disastrous labor income shock. Moreover, we study the implications of introducing endogenous borrowing constraints in this incomplete-markets setting.