We construct a panel of S&P 500 Index call and put option portfolios, daily adjusted to maintain targeted maturity, moneyness, and unit market beta, and test multi-factor pricing models. The standard linear factor methodology is applicable because the monthly portfolio returns have low skewness and are close to normal. We hypothesize that any one of crisis-related factors incorporating price jumps, volatility jumps, and liquidity (along with the market) explains the cross-sectional variation in returns. Our hypothesis is not rejected, even when the factor premia are constrained to equal the corresponding premia in the cross-section of equities. The alphas of short-maturity out-of-the-money puts become economically and statistically insignificant.

From 2007 to 2016, S&P 500 firms distributed $7 trillion via buybacks and dividends, over 96% of their aggregate net income, prompting claims that “short-termism” is impairing firms’ ability to invest and innovate. We show that, accounting for both direct and indirect equity issuances, net shareholder payouts by all public firms during this period totaled only 41% of net income. And, during this decade, investment substantially increased while cash balances ballooned. In short, S&P 500 shareholder-payout figures cannot provide much basis for the notion that short-termism has been depriving public firms of needed capital. Received September 23, 2018; Editorial decision November 13, 2018; Editor Andrew Ellul

Short sale constraints prior to seasoned equity offers, imposed by Rule 10b-21 in 1988, are believed to compromise pricing efficiency and contribute to the large temporal increase in offer price discounting. This study provides additional insights by examining shelf-registered offers, which were exempt from pre-issue short sale constraints until 2004. The results suggest that pre-issue short sale constraints do not influence the level of discounting in seasoned equity offers. Moreover, this study reports that the recent temporal increase in discounting is due to a greater prevalence of overnight shelf offers, which are associated with relatively large offer price discounts.

I address the “decimalization” debate, i.e., whether trading on cent ticks rather than fractions of a dollar reduces trading costs without diminishing liquidity. I use Toronto Stock Exchange data following their switch to decimal trading on April 15, 1996. For stocks whose minimum tick was reduced from one-eighth of a dollar to five cents, decimalization reduced spreads, while liquidity was not adversely affected. Investors' trading costs and liquidity providers' profits declined on average, but trading volume did not increase. For stocks whose minimum tick size declined from 5 cents to 1 cent, decimalization had little impact on market quality.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: G12, G15

We present a comprehensive analysis of the performance and flows of U.S. actively managed equity mutual funds during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. We find that most active funds underperform passive benchmarks during the crisis, contradicting a popular hypothesis. Funds with high sustainability ratings perform well, as do funds with high star ratings. Fund outflows surpass precrisis trends, but not dramatically. Investors favor funds that apply exclusion criteria and funds with high sustainability ratings, especially environmental ones. Our finding that investors remain focused on sustainability during this major crisis suggests they view sustainability as a necessity rather than a luxury good.

Global turnover in foreign exchange markets averaged $1.2 trillion per day according to the most recent estimates available from the Bank for International Settlements. 1 Yet, cross-border trade of goods and services accounts for less than 5 percent of the total trading. While it is difficult to get precise estimates on hedging, roughly 20 percent of total trading is aimed at hedging against future exchange rate changes. The remaining roughly 75 percent of total turnover in global foreign exchange markets is believed to be related to short or long term exchange rate speculation. The large fraction of global turnover in currency markets that is unrelated to trade or hedging has lead economists and policy markets to the conjecture that speculation is responsible for the perceived recent increase in volatility in foreign exchange markets. Several economists, most prominently Nobel Laureate Dr. James Tobin, have advocated levying a tax (a "Tobin tax") on foreign exchange transactions to reduce volatility induced by exchange rate speculation. Recently, several European countries spearheaded by France have debated a proposed legislation to impose a tax on currency transactions. 2 However, to date, there is no strong empirical evidence that an increase in transactions costs (which would be the result of a Tobin tax) would significantly dampen volatility. On the contrary, This is the first piece of legislation in the world that would implement a Tobin-type tax. Belgium passed similar legislation in March, 2002, and several other European Union member countries have debated a Tobin tax. See www.currencytax.org.

The strength of economic theory is that it can look at the hypothetical rather than merely ex-post rationalize observed behavior. In particular, it can ask the 'what if' question of how changes in model parameters might affect efficiency and social welfare. Based on the answer, it can then suggest welfare-improving policy measures in situations in which privately optimal outcomes are socially inefficient.

This paper studies financial intermediation in a general equilibrium overlapping generations model. Indivisible investment projects combine with informational imperfections to create a (hidden action) moral hazard problem and introduce a role for third-party monitoring. Agency costs at the intermediary level are also considered. Under some conditions, monitors can be viewed as banks facing a non-trivial portfolio diversification problem. Equilibria are derived in which a large nationwide bank coexists with a number of community-regional banks, a structure of strong empirical relevance. Policies such as a mandatory reserve requirement are shown to have substantial effects on the levels of investment in the economy.