Knowledge that Transforms

We study an investment problem in which two asymmetric firms face competition and the regime characterizing the economic condition follows a Markov switching process. We derive the value functions and investment thresholds of the leader and follower. The option value of regime uncertainty is found to be quite important for the investment decision of firms. We also show the relationship between the equity risk premium and the economic cycle that has not been done in previous studies, which proxy economic conditions by the level of demand or other state variables.

We present a two-factor option-pricing model, which parsimoniously captures the difference in volatility persistences under the historical and risk-neutral probabilities. The model generates an S-shaped pricing kernel that exhibits time-varying risk aversion. We apply our model for two purposes. First, we analyze the risk preference implied by S&P500 index options during 2001–2009 and find that risk-aversion level strongly increases during stressed market conditions. Second, we apply our model for Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasts during the subprime crisis period and find that it outperforms several leading VaR models.

We study how investors respond to ‘superficial’ mutual-fund name changes that occur for no fundamental reasons. We find that such name changes remain widespread even after regulation to curb potentially misleading name changes (SEC Rule 35d-1). Superficial changes are more widespread than previously studied ‘misleading’ changes that are not accompanied by corresponding portfolio adjustments reflecting the investment style suggested by the new name. Superficial changes appear to be driven by managerial incentives. Investors react to superficial changes with increased fund flows but appear to gain no benefit through improved performance or lower fees. On the contrary, name-change funds underperform as a group. Our findings highlight inefficiencies in the mutual-fund market and hold important implications for the stakeholders involved.

We study the effect of mortgage prepayment penalties on borrowers’ prepayments and delinquencies by exploiting a 2007 reform in Italy that reduced penalties on outstanding mortgages and banned penalties on newly-issued mortgages. Using a unique dataset of mortgages issued by a large Italian lender, we provide evidence that: 1) before the reform, mortgages issued to riskier borrowers included larger penalties; 2) higher prepayment penalties decreased borrowers’ prepayments; and 3) higher prepayment penalties did not affect borrowers’ delinquencies. Moreover, we find suggestive evidence that prepayment penalties affected mortgage pricing, as well as prepayments and delinquencies through borrowers’ mortgage selection at origination, most notably for riskier borrowers.

This study explores how the violation of free short selling assumption affects the performance of CAPM and the Fama-French three-factor model, as existing studies show that short-sales constraints affect asset pricing of the stocks. Using data from the Hong Kong Stock Market which has unique regulations on short selling, we conduct both time-series and cross-sectional regression analyses to evaluate the performance of the two models under the short-sales-constraints and the no-constraints market environment. The two models perform much worse in the former environment than in the latter, indicating a significant impact of the short sales constraints on the explanatory power of the models. We then augment the two models with a shortability-mimicking factor. Our results show that the factor has a significant power in explaining both time-series and cross-sectional variation in the size-B/M portfolio returns. The addition of the factor to the two models considerably increases their overall performance.

This paper examines risk-taking incentives in banks under different accounting regimes in presence of capital regulation. In the model the bank jointly determines the capital issuance and investment policy. Given an exogenous minimum capital requirement, lower-of-cost-or-market accounting is the most effective regime that induces the bank to issue more excess equity capital above the minimum required level and implement less risky investment policy. However, the disciplining role of lower-of-cost-or-market accounting may discourage the bank from exerting project discovery effort ex-ante. From the regulator’s perspective, the accounting regime that maximizes the social welfare is determined by a tradeoff between the social cost of capital regulation and the efficiency of the bank’s project discovery efforts. When the former effect dominates, the regulator prefers lower-of-cost-or-market accounting; when the latter effect dominates, the regulator may prefer other regimes.

Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are an alternative investment, structured as a one-shot private equity (PE) deal. Significant cross-sectional variation exists in SPACs' performance, which can be explained by the strong implicit incentives embedded in contracts. SPAC performance is worse for acquisitions announced near the predetermined two-year deadline, for acquisitions with deferred initial public offering underwriting fees, and for acquisitions with market value close to the required 80% threshold. Also, sponsors' involvement in the merged firm's governance improves long-term performance. This evidence has important implications given SPACs' high popularity in recent years and the new PE industry's trend toward deal-by-deal fund-raising.

We use the ethnicity of CEOs across 31 countries as a proxy for their common inherited beliefs and values and find an ethnicity effect in CEO variable pay. We find that the ethnicity effect in variable pay is not driven by the ethnicity effects in corporate policy decisions, and that changes in CEO compensation are significantly larger when CEOs are replaced with a person from a different ethnicity. Our estimated ethnicity effect captures the future time reference and religion of CEOs’ ancestors. Finally, we find an ethnicity effect in performance-firing sensitivities (i.e., the sensitivity to being fired due to poor performance).

We characterize the properties of optimal accounting rules in a signaling game. An impatient firm sells shares to competitive investors. The firm can signal its private information about the fundamental by retaining a fraction of the shares. In addition, the firm can commit to disclosing information according to a set of accounting rules chosen ex ante. Information disclosure reduces signaling cost so that perfect disclosure is optimal. When perfect disclosure is impossible, the optimal accounting rule features a lower bound and a summary statistic of the fundamental. The interpretation of the lower bound is consistent with accounting conservatism, and the statistic summarizes the information most relevant to the firm׳s valuation. The justification for accounting conservatism relies on the existence of information asymmetry and the infeasibility of perfect accounting disclosure. This is consistent with the conjecture of LaFond and Watts (2008) that information asymmetry calls for accounting conservatism.

In a cross-country setting we show the probability of a forced CEO turnover in large banks is positively associated with idiosyncratic tail risk. This finding is strengthened the greater the competition in the banking industry and when stakeholders have more to lose in the case of distress. Overall, the exposure to idiosyncratic tail risk offers valuable signals to bank boards on the quality of the choices made by CEOs. In contrast, systematic tail risk becomes important for forced CEO turnovers only in the presence of a major variation in the costs this risk generates for shareholders and the organization.