We analyze a firm’s choice between dividends and stock repurchases under heterogeneous beliefs. Firm insiders, owning a certain fraction of equity, choose between paying out cash available through a dividend payment or a stock repurchase, and simultaneously choose the scale of the firm’s project. Outsiders have heterogeneous beliefs about project success and may disagree with insiders. In equilibrium, the firm distributes value through dividends alone, through a repurchase alone, or through a combination of both. In some situations, the firm may raise external financing to fund its payout. We also develop results for long-run stock returns following dividends and repurchases. (JEL G32, G35) Received June 2, 2020; editorial decision November 3, 2020 by Editor Andrew Ellul.

We study an environment with short-sale constraints and heterogeneous beliefs among outsiders and between insiders and outsiders. Firm insiders choose between equity, debt, and convertible debt to raise external financing. We analyze two settings: one in which heterogeneous beliefs is the only market imperfection and another in which there are significant security issue and financial distress costs. Our model generates a pecking order of external financing different from asymmetric information models, and new predictions for capital structure, sequential tranching of securities, the price impact of security issues, and long-run stock returns. We also provide a new rationale for convertible debt issuance.

Although the world of banking and finance is becoming more integrated every day, in most aspects the world of financial regulation continues to be narrowly defined by national boundaries. The main players here are still national governments and governmental agencies. And until recently, they tended to follow a policy of shielding their activities from scrutiny by their peers and members of the academic community rather than inviting critical assessments and an exchange of ideas. The turbulence in international financial markets in the 1980s, and its impact on US banks, gave rise to the notion that academics working in the field of banking and financial regulation might be in a position to make a contribution to the improvement of regulation in the United States, and thus ultimately to the stability of the entire financial sector. This provided the impetus for the creation of the “US Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee”. In the meantime, similar shadow committees have been founded in Europe, Japan and Latin America. The specific problems associated with financial regulation in Europe, as well as the specific features which distinguish the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC) from its counterparts in the US and Japan, derive from the fact that while Europe has already made substantial progress towards economic and political integration, it is still primarily a collection of distinct nation–states with differing institutional set-ups and political and economic traditions. Therefore, any attempt to work towards a European approach to financial regulation must include an effort to promote the development of a European culture of co-operation in this area, and this is precisely what the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee seeks to do. In this paper, Harald Benink, chairman of the ESFRC, and Reinhard H. Schmidt, one of the two German members, discuss the origin, the objectives and the functioning of the committee and the thrust of its recommendations.

Paul H. Cootner, David H. Pyle, Capital Asset Pricing in a General Equilibrium Framework, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 13, No. 4, Proceedings of Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Western Finance Association, June 20-26, 1978 (Nov., 1978), pp. 613-624

How should long-term investors form portfolios in our time-varying, multi-factor and friction-filled world? Two conceptual frameworks may help: first, look directly at the stream of payments that a portfolio and payout policy can produce. Second, include a general equilibrium view of the markets’ economic purpose, and the nature of investors’ different preferences, risk-taking ability, and function in that equilibrium. These perspectives can rationalize some of investors’ behaviors, suggest substantial revisions to standard portfolio theory, and help us to apply portfolio theory in a way that is useful in practice.

Macro-finance addresses the link between asset prices and economic fluctuations. Many models reflect the same rough idea: the market’s ability to bear risk is greater in good times, and less in bad times. Models achieve this similar result by quite different mechanisms. I contrast their strengths and weaknesses. I highlight directions for future research, including additional facts to be matched, and limitations of the models that should prod future theoretical work. I describe how macro-finance models can fundamentally alter macroeconomics, by putting time-varying risk premiums and risk-bearing capacity at the center of recessions rather than variation in the interest rate and intertemporal substitution.

Using an arbitrage approach,

problems of a particular equation in the model. Examples are given. Further generalizations are also considered but only conditional results are given. Further work is suggested.