[Using data from 56 markets, we find that short-term reversal, post-earnings drift, and momentum strategies earn similar returns in emerging and developed markets. Variance ratios and market delay measures often show greater deviations from random walk pricing in developed markets. Conceptually, we show that commonly used efficiency tests can yield misleading inferences because they do not control for the information environment. Our evidence corrects misperceptions that emerging markets feature larger trading profits and higher return autocorrelation, highlights crucial limitations of weak and semi-strong form efficiency measures, and points to the importance of measuring informational aspects of efficiency.]

[This article investigates the dynamic relation between market-wide trading activity and returns in 46 markets. Many stock markets exhibit a strong positive relation between turnover and past returns. These findings stand up in the face of various controls for volatility, alternative definitions of turnover, differing sample periods, and are present at both the weekly and daily frequency. The relation is more statistically and economically significant in countries with high levels of corruption, with short-sale restrictions, and in which market volatility is high.]

This paper proposes several frameworks to estimate the appropriate default correlations for structured products, each of which jointly considers the role of co-movements in modeled risk characteristics and unmodeled systematic risk, or ‘frailty.’ We contrast our estimates with credit rating agencies’ default correlation assumptions, which were only 0.01 for Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) pre-crisis and have increased to 0.03 post-crisis. In contrast, the joint consideration of observable risk factors and frailty leads to substantially higher estimates of 0.12. We show that this translates into CLOs with credit risk understated by 26%, suggesting caution for the post-crisis structured finance market.

Between March and August 2020, S&P and Moody’s downgraded approximately 25% of collateral feeding into CLOs and only 2% of tranche values, with rating actions concentrating in junior tranches. Both S&P and Moody’s modeling indicate that the impacts should have been considerably larger, especially for higher-rated tranches. Neither changes in correlation nor the accumulation of pre-COVID-19 protective cushions can explain the downgrade asymmetry on upper tranches. Instead, CLO managers repositioned their collateral pools to dampen the negative credit shock and rating agencies incorporated qualitative adjustments in their CLO ratings. Important potential policy and market implications from these findings are discussed.

[This article studies differences in the information content of 870,000 news announcements in 56 markets around the world. In most developed markets, a firm's stock price moves much more on days with public news about the firm. In contrast, in many emerging markets volatility is similar on news and non-news days. We examine several hypotheses for our findings. Cross-country differences in stock price reactions are best explained by insider trading, followed by differences in the quality of the news dissemination mechanism. Our findings are useful for quantifying the extent of insider trading and how the financial media affects international markets.]

This paper re-examines the extent to which gains from international diversification are due to differences in industrial structure across countries. Recent papers by Roll (1992), Journal of Finance 47, 3–42 and Heston and Rouwenhorst (1994), Journal of Financial Economics 36, 3–27 investigate this issue and find conflicting evidence. Using a new database, the Dow Jones World Stock Index, with coverage in 25 countries and over 66 industry classifications, we decompose comprehensively both country and industrial sources of variation. We confirm that little of the variation in country index returns can be explained by their industrial composition. We also uncover differences in the proportion of variation in industry index returns that is captured by country and industry factors and discuss the implications for global diversification strategies.

Conventional wisdom suggests that high-reputation banks will generally produce good securities to maintain their long-run reputation. We show with a simple model that, when securities are complex a high-reputation bank may produce assets that underperform during market downturns. We examine this possibility using a unique sample of $10.1 trillion of CLO, MBS, ABS, and CDOs. Contrary to the conventional view, securities issued by more reputable banks did not outperform but, rather, had higher proportions of capital in default.

Pandemic fraud is geographically concentrated and stimulated local purchases, with effects on prices. Recipients of fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds significantly increased their home purchasing rate compared to recipients of non-fraudulent PPP funds, and house prices in high-fraud ZIP codes increased 5.8 percentage points more than in low-fraud ZIP codes within the same county. In a horse race, pandemic fraud is one of the largest and most robust factors explaining house price appreciation during COVID. ZIP codes with fraud also experienced heightened vehicle purchases and other consumer spending in 2020-21, with a return to normal in 2022.

Commercial loan valuations crucially depend on accurate loan income, but underwritten income on commercial mortgage‐backed securities (CMBS) loans is commonly overstated relative to actual property income. Consistent with these differences being originator‐specific, income overstatement in CMBS 2.0 deals varies widely and persistently across originators, is priced by originators, is related across property types within an originator, is predictable ex ante, and is accompanied by inflation of past financials. Risk retention and associated regulation had no discernible effect on income overstatement. Originator income overstatement is highly predictive of pre‐ and COVID‐period loan distress. Overall, recent market stresses reveal large systemic differences in underwriting standards across originators.

At the settlement time of the VIX Volatility Index, volume spikes on S&P 500 Index (SPX) options, but only in out-of-the-money options used to calculate the VIX, and more so for options with a higher and discontinuous influence on VIX. We investigate alternative explanations of hedging and coordinated liquidity trading. Tests including those utilizing differences in put and call options, open interest around the settlement, and a similar volatility contract with an entirely different settlement procedure in Europe are inconsistent with these explanations but consistent with market manipulation. Large transient deviations in prices demonstrate the importance of settlement design. Received November 28, 2015; editorial decision June 19, 2017 by Editor Robin Greenwood.