Abstract What distribution best characterizes the time series and cross-section of individual stock returns? To answer this question, we estimate the degree of cross-sectional return skewness relative to a benchmark that nests many models considered in the literature. We find that cross-sectional skewness in monthly returns far exceeds what this benchmark model predicts. However, cross-sectional skewness in long-run returns in the data is substantially below what the model predicts. We show that fat-tailed idiosyncratic events appear to be necessary to explain skewness in the data. (JEL, G10, G11, G12, G13, G14).

Abstract This study examines the relation between employee incentives and corporate innovation. We find that firms with a higher defined benefit (DB) pension value secure more patents and patent citations. We further show that pension freezes, which stop the accumulation of pension obligations, negatively affect innovation outcomes. The value of a DB plan enhances innovation by motivating employees to produce higher output and through loyalty. However, pension deficits impede innovation because of the nature of inside debt. Overall, our findings call for a fresh look at pensions by policy makers and practitioners, given the historic shift away from DB plans. (JEL G31, G32, O31, O32).

Abstract We address the determination of bitcoin prices and decentralized security. Users forecast the transactional and resale values of holdings, pricing the risk of systemic attacks. Miners contribute resources to protect against attackers and compete for block rewards. Bitcoin’s design leads to multiple equilibria: the same blockchain technology is consistent with sharply different price and security levels. Bitcoin’s monetary policy can lead to welfare losses and deviations from quantity theory. Price-security feedback amplifies fundamental shocks’ volatility impact and leads to boom and busts unconnected to fundamentals. We characterize how viability versus fiat currency depends on bitcoin’s relative acceptability and inflation protection.

Recent years have seen several 100-year anniversaries of the women’s vote, and today universal and equal suffrage is an inseparable part of democracy. Dawn Teele’s book, Forging the Franchise, is an inquiry into the reasons why male politicians elected by male voters gave women the right to vote in the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. It offers a theory of the political origins that focuses on electoral expediency and mobilization of women’s groups and it provides quantitative evidence from the three countries. It argues that women got the right to vote when the incumbents saw and needed an electoral advantage of expanding the right to vote to females. The book is of interest not only to those who want a deeper understanding of the historical process of women’s enfranchisement or who are interested in the political economy of democratization, but to everyone with a concern about gender inequality in politics today. (JEL D72, E16, J16, N30, N40)

The China Accounting and Finance Review (CAFR) was jointly established in 1999 by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Tsinghua University. Over the past 22 years, CAFR has published original papers in accounting and finance with a focus on China-related research. In this article, we review the journal’s publishing patterns and the impactful articles it has published, with the aim of better understanding past research on China-related issues and recent publication patterns and trends as well as developing new insight that may inspire future submissions. We divide past CAFR articles by topic into six groups: (i) information disclosure; (ii) auditing; (iii) corporate governance; (iv) market efficiency; (v) corporate finance; and (vi) miscellaneous. We use these categories as the basis of our review for articles published before 2020. We also summarize articles by their regional setting, research methodology, and authors’ university affiliation. We then highlight the contributions of a few impactful CAFR articles that are actively cited in both the Chinese and English literature. We complement the literature review by going over China’s financial stability research in JFS. We also compare CAFR with other major accounting and finance journals in the Asia-Pacific region. CAFR stands out by welcoming research using a diversity of regional settings and research topics. Finally, we discuss the new editorial strategies that began in 2020. Under the new editorial policy, CAFR now publishes more non-China and more cross-disciplinary studies than it used to. We review several recent publications to demonstrate the change. Going forward, we intend to call for the publication of more high-quality papers in accounting and finance that are not restricted to a region, area, or methodology providing new insights into accounting and finance.

Abstract Passive exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are ideally suited to style-level feedback trading because of their high liquidity, ease of short selling, and pure play on investment styles. I find strong evidence of short-term style-momentum trading in ETFs. Institutional investors that use ETFs do not act as arbitrageurs by trading against style momentum. Institutions, especially less sophisticated ones, are themselves style-momentum traders. Moreover, recent style-level demand predicts style-level return reversals. These findings suggest that uninformed positive feedback trading by less sophisticated market participants can destabilize financial markets in the short run.

At the beginning of the present century, the literature on financial integration focused on the benefits of increased integration. In particular, the literature emphasized that a well-integrated financial system allows economic agents to engage in risk sharing while enhancing the smooth transmission of monetary policy. However, the international financial crisis of 2007-08 and the euro area sovereign debt crisis of 2009-15, brought to the fore the flip side of increased financial integration – namely, that higher financial integration among national jurisdictions creates the potential for destabilizing cross-country spillovers of capital flows. The papers in this Special Issue address financial system vulnerabilities in the aftermath of the 2007-08 financial crisis and the 2009-15 euro area crisis. In particular, the papers assess (1) vulnerabilities arising from such factors as the liberalization of financial systems, cross-country contagion, and climate change, and (2) policy responses, including macroprudential supervision and quantitative easing, to financial instabilities.

Using unique disclosures from the insurance industry, we identify instances where auditors plausibly allow clients to opportunistically utilize discretion in accounting estimates to manipulate losses to reported profits (i.e., auditor lenience). Auditing standards and SEC guidance state that auditors should consider whether a misstatement shifts a loss to a profit as a qualitative factor when evaluating the materiality of misstatements. We find that audit office lenience is positively associated with subsequent market share changes. The effect is driven by increases in the likelihood of keeping existing, non-manipulating clients. In generalizability tests, we find similar inferences in the banking industry when using bank-specific disclosures and across all industries when measuring auditor lenience using likelihood of issuing going-concern opinions. These results highlight settings where auditors may be rewarded for lenience, specifically when management values financial reporting discretion and auditors can avoid publicized audit failures.

This paper assesses the effects of capital gains taxes on investment in the Republic of Korea (hereafter, Korea), where capital gains tax rates vary at the firm level by firm size. Following a reform in 2014, firms with a tax cut increased investment by 34 log points and issued more equity by 9 cents per dollar of lagged revenue, relative to unaffected firms. Additionally, the effects were larger for firms that appeared more cash constrained or went public after the reform. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the “traditional view” predicting that lower payout taxes spur equity-financed investment by increasing marginal returns on investment. (JEL D25, G31, G32, H25, H32, L25)