This article uses bond market data to empirically test the asset pricing model of Kazemi (1992). According to this model the rate of return on a long-term, pure-discount, default-free bond will be perfectly correlated with changes in the marginal utility of the representative investor. The covariability between financial asset returns and returns on such a bond can therefore serve as a measure of the riskiness of assets. The aim of this study is to determine whether the model can explain cross-sectional differences in the monthly returns of bonds with different maturity dates. We estimate and test the restrictions imposed by the model on returns of default-free bonds, while allowing the conditional distribution of bond returns to be time varying. The model is rejected during the full sample period (1973–1995) and the subperiod (1973–1980) when the Federal Reserve's focus is on interest rates, while the model is not rejected during the subperiod (1981–1995) when the Federal Reserve's focus is on money supply.

[When a market order arrives, the NYSE specialist can offer a price one tick better than the limit orders on the book and trade for his own account. Alternatively, the specialist can "stop" the market order, which means he guarantees execution at the current quote but provides the possibility of price improvement. My model shows that specialists can use stops to sample the future order flow before making a commitment to trade. I present empirical evidence that both stops and immediate price improvement impose adverse selection costs on limit order traders.]

When a market order arrives, the NYSE specialist can offer a price one tick better than the limit orders on the book and trade for his own account. Alternatively, the specialist can "stop" the market order, which means he guarantees execution at the current quote but provides the possibility of price improvement. My model shows that specialists can use stops to sample the future order flow before making a commitment to trade. I present empirical evidence that both stops and immediate price improvement impose adverse selection costs on limit order traders.

This article investigates the long-term equity performance of Japanese firms issuing convertible debt and equity. We find that issuing firms perform poorly (except for equity rights issues) compared to nonissuing firms even though the stock-price reaction to convertible debt and equity issues is not negative for Japanese firms. This underperformance is strongest for firms issuing public convertible debt. In contrast to the United States, poor performance is not concentrated in smaller firms and in firms with a high market-to-book ratio. Simple behavioral explanations advanced for the new issue puzzle in the United States do not seem consistent with the Japanese experience.

[This article presents convenient reduced-form models of the valuation of contingent claims subject to default risk, focusing on applications to the term structure of interest rates for corporate or sovereign bonds. Examples include the valuation of a credit-spread option.]

[This article integrates strategic product market analysis with price-taking asset pricing theory. We demonstrate that a firm's market power can lead to scale-dependent and potentially infinite required returns. Scale dependency, which we relate to risk spillovers between expansionary and existing cash flows, reflects the divergence of incremental from existing required returns. The firm-specific nature of risk spillovers potentially destroys the concept of a common industry "risk class." Our analysis raises important questions regarding the validity of widely used "comparables" methods for determining risk-adjusted discount rates.]

[We address the question: At what stage in its life should a firm go public rather than undertake its projects using private equity financing? In our model a firm may raise external financing either by placing shares privately with a risk-averse venture capitalist or by selling shares in an IPO to numerous small investors. The entrepreneur has private information about his firm's value, but outsiders can reduce this informational disadvantage by evaluating the firm at a cost. The equilibrium timing of the going-public decision is determined by the firm's trade-off between minimizing the duplication in information production by outsiders (unavoidable in the IPO market, but mitigated by a publicly observable share price) and avoiding the risk-premium demanded by venture capitalists. Testable implications are developed for the cross-sectional variations in the age of going-public across industries and countries.]

[We empirically examine whether access to deposits with inelastic rates (core deposits) permits a bank to make contractual agreements with borrowers that are infeasible if the bank must pay market rates for funds. Such access insulates a bank's costs of funds from exogenous shocks, allowing it to insulate its borrowers against exogenous credit shocks. We find that, controlling for loan market competition, banks funded more heavily with core deposits provide more loan rate smoothing in response to exogenous changes in aggregate credit risk. Thus we provide evidence for a novel channel linking bank liabilities to relationship lending.]

We empirically examine whether access to deposits with inelastic rates (core deposits) permits a bank to make contractual agreements with borrowers that are infeasible if the bank must pay market rates for funds. Such access insulates a bank's costs of funds from exogenous shocks, allowing it to insulate its borrowers against exogenous credit shocks. We find that, controlling for loan market competition, banks funded more heavily with core deposits provide more loan rate smoothing in response to exogenous changes in aggregate credit risk. Thus we provide evidence for a novel channel linking bank liabilities to relationship lending.

This article integrates strategic product market analysis with price-taking asset pricing theory. We demonstrate that a firm's market power can lead to scale-dependent and potentially infinite required returns. Scale dependency, which we relate to risk spillovers between expansionary and existing cash flows, reflects the divergence of incremental from existing required returns. The firm-specific nature of risk spillovers potentially destroys the concept of a common industry “risk class”. Our analysis raises important questions regarding the validity of widely used “comparables” methods for determining risk-adjusted discount rates.