We study the effects of fiscal policy interventions in a liquidity trap in a model with nominal rigidities and an interest rate rule. In a liquidity trap caused by a self-fulfilling state of low confidence, higher government spending has deflationary effects that reduce the spending multiplier when the zero lower bound is binding. Instead, cuts in marginal labour tax rates are inflationary and become more expansionary when the zero lower bound is binding. These findings contradict a popular view, based on a liquidity trap caused by a fundamental shock such as a taste shock, that higher government spending is inflationary and can therefore be associated with large multipliers at the zero lower bound, while lower marginal tax rates are deflationary and therefore counterproductive.

We evaluate motives for share repurchases using a unified framework where a firm has a target capital structure and has equity that can be mispriced. We document that capital structure adjustments are a value-increasing motive for repurchases and that the extent to which adjusting capital structure through a repurchase creates value depends on the undervaluation of the firm. Underlevered and undervalued firms enjoy the greatest economic gains from a repurchase, as evidenced by the stock price reaction to the repurchase announcement, and these firms are more likely to announce a share repurchase program.

Although recent research documents a positive relation between corporate transparency and the proportion of independent directors, the direction of causality is unclear. We examine a regulatory shock that substantially increased board independence for some firms, and find that information asymmetry, and to some extent management disclosure and financial intermediation, changed at firms affected by this shock. We also examine whether these effects vary as a function of management entrenchment, information processing costs, and required changes to audit committee independence. Our results suggest that firms can alter their corporate transparency to suit the informational demands of a particular board structure.

We estimate a macro-finance yield curve model for both the nominal and real forward curve for the UK from 1993 to 2008. Our model is able to accommodate a number of key macroeconomic variables and allows us to estimate the instantaneous response of the yield curve and so gauge the impact of Quantitative Easing on forward rates. We find that 10year nominal interest rates on average are lower by 46 basis points which can largely be explained by three main channels: portfolio balance; liquidity premium and signalling but there is no sizeable impact on real interest rates.

This paper examines the trading behavior of two groups of liquidity providers (specialists and competing market makers) using a six-year panel of NYSE data. Trades of each group are negatively correlated with contemporaneous price changes. To test for return predictability, we sort stocks into quintiles based on each group’s past trades and then form long-short portfolios. Stocks most heavily bought have significantly higher returns than stocks most heavily sold over the two weeks following a sort. Cross-sectional analysis shows smaller, more volatile, less actively traded, and less liquid stocks more often appear in the extreme quintiles. Time series analysis shows the long-short portfolio returns are positively correlated with a market-wide measure of liquidity. A double sort using past trades of specialists and competing market makers produces a long-short portfolio that earns 88 basis points per week (act as complements). Finally, we identify a “chain” of liquidity provision. Designated market makers (NYSE specialists) initially trade against order flows and prices changes. Specialists later mean revert their inventories by trading with competing market makers who appear to spread trades over a number of days. Alternatively, specialists may trade with competing market makers who arrive to market with delay.

We use Markov chain methods to develop a flexible class of discrete stochastic autoregressive volatility (DSARV) models. Our approach to formulating the models is straightforward, and readily accommodates features such as volatility asymmetry and time-varying volatility persistence. Moreover, it produces models with a low-dimensional state space, which greatly enhances computational tractability. We illustrate the proposed methodology for both individual stock and stock index returns, and show that simple first- and second-order DSARV models outperform generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity and Markov-switching multifractal models in forecasting volatility.

ABSTRACT I estimate a dynamic investment model for mutual managers to study the cross‐sectional distribution of ability, incentives, and risk preferences. The manager's compensation depends on the size of the fund, which fluctuates due to fund returns and due to fund flows that respond to the fund's relative performance. The model provides an economic interpretation of time‐varying coefficients in performance regressions in terms of the structural parameters. I document that the estimates of fund alphas are precise and virtually unbiased. I find substantial heterogeneity in ability, risk preferences, and pay‐for‐performance sensitivities that relates to observable fund characteristics.

We study the stock market's reaction to the unexpected death of a top executive or board chair for insight into grey director incentives. Whereas there is little debate as to the motives of inside and strict outside directors, the allegiance of grey directors is less certain. We find that grey directors' dominant incentive depends on whether the firm has a succession plan or not. In firms with a succession plan, grey directors' primary motive is to maintain their business ties to the firm. Absent a succession plan, the stock market expects grey directors to use their influence to hire a higher quality replacement, particularly when these directors hold a large equity stake. Our findings suggest that grey directors place their interests as shareholders first when a replacement decision is likely to weaken their business ties with the firm. Grey directors appear to influence the choice of a higher quality replacement whether that person is an insider or outsider.

Prior studies find that CEOs receive higher pay if the enterprise is more complex because more complex enterprises are, in theory, matched with the managerial skills of higher-ability CEOs. While multinational diversification is typically a characteristic of enterprise complexity, we argue that multinational diversification also introduces a risk that executives will divert an enterprise’s resources to obtain private benefits. We first establish that CEO pay is, on average, increasing in the extent of multinational diversification, consistent with intuition that more complex enterprises are matched to higher‐ability CEOs. We then demonstrate that the CEO pay‐for‐complexity premium is lower if the multinational diversification reflects a relatively high risk of managerial diversion. For sufficiently high levels of multinational diversification accompanied by a high risk of managerial diversion, we find that CEOs receive a relative reduction in pay rather than a pay premium for multinational diversification. We also find evidence that this pay effect occurs in part through adjustments to a CEO’s pay‐for‐performance sensitivity.