Using a novel typology of serial acquirers, we examine several puzzles documented in the prior literature. We show that acquisitions by different types of acquirers are driven by different factors, they acquire different sizes of targets, and subsequent acquisitions by acquirers are predictable ex ante. Controlling for market anticipation, the most frequent serial acquirers do not earn declining returns as they continue acquiring, while less frequent acquirers do. Our methodology enhances our understanding of serial acquisition dynamics, anticipation, and economic value adjustments. The methodology is likely to be relevant to topics related to event anticipation beyond those covered in this study.

The 2005 split-share reform in China mandated the conversion of previously non-tradable stocks into tradable status. The reform was swift and changed investors’ability to trade corporate equities in a US$400 billion market. This paper examines the e¤ects of stock markets on …rms ’ real and …nancial outcomes. It does so exploiting multiple institutional features of the Chinese equity conversion program. We …rst examine a pilot trial conducted at the beginning of the reform, which we are able to replicate using the same data and selection criteria that was used by policy-makers. We also take advantage of the staggered nature of the conversion schedule used in the second phase of the reform, whereby over one thousand …rms converted their shares at di¤erent times within a government-dictated window. These various wrinkles produce counterfactuals against which to gauge the economic importance of secondary equity trading. Using a time-varying treatment estimation approach, we identify increases in corporate pro…tability, investment, value, and productivity as shares start to trade freely in organized exchanges. We also identify changes in …rms’propensity to issue new shares and engage in merger deals, as well as changes in their dividend and capital structure policies. Our …ndings provide new insights on the role of stock markets in shaping corporate activity

Sri Lanka unilaterally defaulted on its external debt in April 2022, exposing its long-standing economic and financial vulnerabilities and igniting a series of inter-related multiple economic crises—fiscal, debt, currency, inflation, and balance of payments—as well as a vast socio-political upheaval. This paper analyses the economic crisis and its various dimensions to understand the sources of the crisis and draw policy implications. The role of fiscal balances and public debt in the crisis, along with debt sustainability, international sovereign bonds, liquidity crisis, and currency collapse, are analyzed. The root cause of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis was running persistent and large fiscal deficits, which were increasingly financed by unsustainable public debt, particularly foreign commercial borrowings. A substantial reduction and reprofiling of debt through restructuring of both domestic and foreign debt to ensure debt sustainability, meaningful fiscal policy reforms anchored by revenue increases and expenditure rationalization to reduce fiscal deficits, and deep growth-enhancing structural reforms are necessary for medium-term rescue and recovery and long-term growth and stability of Sri Lanka. The findings provide important policy lessons for other emerging markets and middle-income economies.

Recent innovations have made it feasible to transfer private digital currency without the intervention of an organization such as a bank. Any currency must prevent users from spending their balances more than once, which is easier said than done with purely digital currencies. Current digital currencies such as Bitcoin use peer-to-peer networks and open source software to stop double spending and create finality of transactions. This paper explains how the use of these technologies and limitation of the quantity produced can create an equilibrium in which a digital currency has a positive value. This paper also summarizes the rise of 24/7 trading on computerized markets in Bitcoin in which there are no brokers or other agents. The average monthly volatility of returns on Bitcoin is higher than for gold or a set of foreign currencies in dollars, but the lowest monthly volatilities for Bitcoin are less than the highest monthly volatilities for gold and the foreign currencies.

We explore one channel through which interest-rate derivatives usage affects loan growth positively in bank holding companies (BHCs). If interest-rate derivatives usage allows a BHC to substitute more freely among sources of funds, then its reliance on less interest-rate-sensitive sources such as core deposits should be lower. We test the hypothesis that if BHCs use interest-rate derivatives to reduce the adverse effects of interest-rate uncertainty on lending, then their loan growth should be less sensitive to core deposit growth. We find that loan growth is less sensitive to core deposit growth for interest-rate derivatives users than for non-users and that this sensitivity is lower when the extent of derivatives usage is higher. One important implication is that the funding flexibility enjoyed by BHCs using interest-rate derivatives should allow these BHCs to provide a smoother and higher level of intermediation, leading to more stable loan growth and greater economic stability.

This paper discusses the pitfalls in the pricing of barrier options using approximations of the underlying continuous processes via discrete lattice models. To prevent from numerical deficiencies, the space axis is discretized first, and not the time axis. In a Black–Scholes setup, models with improved convergence properties are constructed: a trinomial model and a randomized trinomial model where price changes occur at the jump times of a Poisson process. These lattice models are sufficiently general to handle options with multiple barriers: the numerical difficulties are resolved and extrapolation yields even more accurate results. In a last step, we extend the Black–Scholes setup and incorporate unpredictable discontinuous price movements. The randomized trinomial model can easily be extended to this case, inheriting its superior convergence properties.

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.

The petrochemical industry employs assets subject to temporal and site specificity. The OPEC oil price shocks of the 1970s made it difficult to write contracts covering business dealings in the industry. I use this production and economic setting as a natural experiment to test transaction cost theory. In support of the theory, I find that input price uncertainty in the 1970s positively affected the extent of vertical integration by firms into input stages. Moreover, the positive reaction of vertical integration to price uncertainty mainly occurs in transactions subject to asset specificity. I also examine price controls and market power as alternative explanations for vertical integration in the industry, but fail to find support for these hypotheses.