Knowledge that Transforms

[Alternative ways of conducting inference and measurement for long-horizon forecasting are explored with an application to dividend yields as predictors of stock returns. Monte Carlo analysis indicates that the Hansen and Hodrick (1980) procedure is biased at long horizons, but the alternatives perform better. These include an estimator derived under the null hypothesis as in Richardson and Smith (1991), a reformulation of the regression as in Jegadeesh (1990), and a vector autoregression (VAR) as in Campbell and Shiller (1988), Kandel and Stambaugh (1988), and Campbell (1991). The statistical properties of long-horizon statistics generated from the VAR indicate interesting patterns in expected stock returns.]

[I develop a multitarget takeover model with bid revisions, in which bidders desire a reputation for having low valuations. Such a reputation increases the likelihood that future targets will accept low premium bids. Bidders develop reputation by using low take-it-or-leave-it offers. Consequently, tender premiums, bid revision rates, and success rates are lower for continuing bidders than for those considering only a single target. Success rates vary within a series, and reputation building is more likely with highly correlated target valuations. I provide an exploratory empirical analysis consistent with lower premiums from continuing bidders and discuss some resulting implications regarding "raiders," conglomerates, and resistance strategies.]

[I examine the uniformity of risk pricing in futures and asset markets. Tests against a general alternative do not reject complete integration of futures and asset markets. As predicted, estimates of the "zero-beta" rate for futures are close to zero, and premiums for systematic risk do not differ significantly across assets and futures. There is, however, evidence consistent with a specific alternative model presented by Hirshleifer (1988). Returns in foreign currency and agricultural futures vary with the net holdings of hedgers, after controlling for systematic risk. These results imply a degree of market segmentation and support hedging pressure as a determinant of futures premiums.]

[A model of the nominal term structure of interest rates is developed that has a positive and stationary process for the interest rate and delivers closed-form expressions for the prices of discount bonds and European options on bonds. Unlike the one-state-variable version of the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985) model, this model--even in its one-state-variable version--allows the term premium to change sign as a function of the state and the term of maturity, and also allows for shapes of the yield curve that are observed in the U.S. data but that are disallowed in the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross model.]

[Two homogeneous stocks of physical capital are located in two different countries, separated by an "ocean". They are consumed by local residents, invested in a random production process yielding real returns, or transferred abroad. Under proportional transfer costs, trade, consumption, and capital imbalances are shown to be persistent. The heteroskedastic process for the relative price of capital in the two countries has a nonlinear, mean-reverting drift. Nevertheless, the conditional probability of the price moving from the parity value of unity is greater than the probability of it moving toward parity. The real interest-rate differential incorporates a simple risk premium.]

[We examine market crashes in the multiperiod framework of Glosten and Milgrom (1985). Our analysis shows that if the market's prior beliefs underestimate the extent of dynamic hedging strategies such as portfolio insurance, then the price will be greater than that which would be implied by fundamentals if the extent of portfolio insurance were known with certainty. Over time, the market learns of the amount of portfolio insurance, and consequently reevaluates the previous inferences drawn from purchases that were erroneously regarded as based on favorable information. The result is that the price falls when the amount of portfolio insurance is revealed.]

[Recent evidence suggests that past mutual fund performance predicts future performance. We analyze the relationship between volatility and returns in a sample that is truncated by survivorship and show that this relationship gives rise to the appearance of predictability. We present some numerical examples to show that this effect can be strong enough to account for the strength of the evidence favoring return predictability.]

[Solutions are presented for prices on interest rate options in a two-factor version of the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model of the term structure. Specific solutions are developed for caps on floating interest rates and for European options on discount bonds, coupon bonds, coupon bond futures, and Euro-dollar futures. The solutions for the options are expressed as multivariate integrals, and we show how to reduce the calculations to univariate numerical integrations, which can be calculated very quickly. The two-factor model provides more flexibility in fitting observed term structures, and the fixed parameters of the model can be set to capture the variability of the term structure over time.]

[Weekly data for foreign currency futures prices are examined for evidence of risk premiums. Covariance risks are measured with respect to the excess returns from benchmark portfolios for consumption and wealth. When the parameters representing the prices of the covariance risks are held constant, no risk premiums are detected. However, when these prices are allowed to vary with the conditional expected returns and variances of the benchmark portfolios, possibly reflecting changing investment opportunities, strong evidence of risk premiums is obtained.]