Knowledge that Transforms

While many studies document that the market risk premium is predictable and that betas are not constant, the dividend discount model ignores time‐varying risk premiums and betas. We develop a model to consistently value cashflows with changing risk‐free rates, predictable risk premiums, and conditional betas in the context of a conditional CAPM. Practical valuation is accomplished with an analytic term structure of discount rates, with different discount rates applied to expected cashflows at different horizons. Using constant discount rates can produce large misvaluations, which, in portfolio data, are mostly driven at short horizons by market risk premiums and at long horizons by time variation in risk‐free rates and factor loadings.

We investigate the factors influencing the selection of stocks for option listing. Exchanges tend to list options on stocks with high trading volume, volatility, and market capitalization, but the relative effect of these factors has changed over time as markets have evolved. We observe a shift from volume toward volatility after the moratorium on new listings ended in 1980. Using control sample methodology designed to correct for the endogeneity of option listing, we find no evidence that volatility declines with option introduction, in contrast to previous studies that do not use control samples.

In this paper we show that the main empirical findings about firm diversification and performance are consistent with the maximization of shareholder value. In our model, diversification allows a firm to explore better productive opportunities while taking advantage of synergies. By explicitly linking the diversification strategies of the firm to differences in size and productivity, our model provides a natural laboratory to investigate several aspects of the relationship between diversification and performance. Specifically, we show that our model can rationalize the evidence on the diversification discount ( Lang and Stulz (1994) ) and the documented relation between diversification and productivity ( Schoar (2002) ).

Utilizing a comprehensive database of transactions in municipal bonds, we investigate the volume–volatility relation in the municipal bond market. We find a positive relation between the number of transactions and a bond's price volatility. In contrast to previous studies, we find a negative relation between average deal size and price volatility. These results are found to be robust throughout the sample. Our results are inconsistent with current theoretical models of the volume–volatility relation. These inconsistencies may arise because current models fail to account for the effects of overall market liquidity on the costs of large transactions.

We show that analysts from sell‐side firms generally recommend “glamour” (i.e., positive momentum, high growth, high volume, and relatively expensive) stocks. Naïve adherence to these recommendations can be costly, because the level of the consensus recommendation adds value only among stocks with favorable quantitative characteristics (i.e., value stocks and positive momentum stocks). In fact, among stocks with unfavorable quantitative characteristics, higher consensus recommendations are associated with worse subsequent returns. In contrast, we find that the quarterly change in consensus recommendations is a robust return predictor that appears to contain information orthogonal to a large range of other predictive variables.

This paper models components of the return distribution, which are assumed to be directed by a latent news process. The conditional variance of returns is a combination of jumps and smoothly changing components. A heterogeneous Poisson process with a time‐varying conditional intensity parameter governs the likelihood of jumps. Unlike typical jump models with stochastic volatility, previous realizations of both jump and normal innovations can feed back asymmetrically into expected volatility. This model improves forecasts of volatility, particularly after large changes in stock returns. We provide empirical evidence of the impact and feedback effects of jump versus normal return innovations, leverage effects, and the time‐series dynamics of jump clustering.

We examine the role of price discovery in the U.S. Treasury market through the empirical relationship between orderflow, liquidity, and the yield curve. We find that orderflow imbalances (excess buying or selling pressure) account for up to 26% of the day‐to‐day variation in yields on days without major macroeconomic announcements. The effect of orderflow on yields is permanent and strongest when liquidity is low. All of the evidence points toward an important role of price discovery in understanding the behavior of the yield curve.

We find that employee stock option deductions lead to large aggregate tax savings for Nasdaq 100 and S&P 100 firms and also affect corporate marginal tax rates. For Nasdaq firms, including the effect of options reduces the estimated median marginal tax rate from 31% to 5%. For S&P firms, in contrast, option deductions do not affect marginal tax rates to a large degree. Our evidence suggests that option deductions are important nondebt tax shields and that option deductions substitute for interest deductions in corporate capital structure decisions, explaining in part why some firms use so little debt.

We provide an economic basis for permitting freezeouts of nontendering shareholders following successful takeovers. We describe a specific freezeout mechanism based on easily verifiable information that induces desirable efficiency and welfare properties in models of both corporations with widely dispersed shareholdings and corporations with large pivotal shareholders. The mechanism dominates previous proposals along some important dimensions. We also examine takeover premia that arise in the presence of competition among raiders. Our mechanism is closely related to the practice of takeover law in the United States; thus, our analysis may be thought of as analyzing the economic foundations of current regulations.

Using a utility function to adjust the risk‐neutral PDF embedded in cross sections of options, we obtain measures of the risk aversion implied in option prices. Using FTSE 100 and S&P 500 options, and both power and exponential‐utility functions, we estimate the representative agent's relative risk aversion (RRA) at different horizons. The estimated coefficients of RRA are all reasonable. The RRA estimates are remarkably consistent across utility functions and across markets for given horizons. The degree of RRA declines broadly with the forecast horizon and is lower during periods of high market volatility.