Prior studies find that the CBOE volatility index (VIX) predicts returns on stock market indices, suggesting implied volatilities measured by VIX are a risk factor affecting security returns or an indicator of market inefficiency. We extend prior work in three important ways. First, we investigate the relationship between future returns and current implied volatility levels and innovations. Second, we examine portfolios sorted on book-to-market equity, size, and beta. Third, we control for the four Fama and French [Fama, E., French, K., 1993. Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds. Journal of Financial Economics 33, 3–56.] and Carhart [Carhart, M., 1997. On persistence in mutual fund performance. Journal of Finance, 52, 57–82.] factors. We find that VIX-related variables have strong predictive ability.

We study the allocation of driver's licenses in India by randomly assigning applicants to one of three groups: bonus (offered a bonus for obtaining a license quickly), lesson (offered free driving lessons), or comparison. Both the bonus and lesson groups are more likely to obtain licenses. However, bonus group members are more likely to make extralegal payments and to obtain licenses without knowing how to drive. All extralegal payments happen through private intermediaries (“agents”). An audit study of agents reveals that they can circumvent procedures such as the driving test. Overall, our results support the view that corruption does not merely reflect transfers from citizens to bureaucrats but distorts allocation.

Many tests of asset-pricing models address only the pricing predictions, but these pricing predictions rest on portfolio choice predictions that seem obviously wrong. This paper suggests a new approach to asset pricing and portfolio choices based on unobserved heterogeneity. This approach yields the standard pricing conclusions of classical models but is consistent with very different portfolio choices. Novel econometric tests link the price and portfolio predictions and take into account the general equilibrium effects of sample-size bias. This paper works through the approach in detail for the case of the classical capital asset pricing model (CAPM), producing a model called CAPM+?. When these econometric tests are applied to data generated by large-scale laboratory asset markets that reveal both prices and portfolio choices, CAPM+?is not rejected. © The Econometric Society 2007.

It has been argued that investors who optimize their portfolios with attention paid only to mean and standard deviation will all end up choosing some multiple of a certain master fund portfolio. Justification for the capital asset pricing model of classical portfolio theory, which relates individual assets to such a master fund, has come from this direction in particular. Attempts have been made to provide solid mathematical support by showing that the imputed behavior of investors is a consequence of price equilibrium in a market in which assets are traded subject to budget constraints, and optimization is carried out with respect to utility functions that depend only on mean and standard deviation. In recent years, reliance on standard deviation has come under increasing criticism because of inconsistencies in its effect on portfolio preferences. One response has been to introduce generalized measures of deviation which lead to alternative master funds. The market implications of such extensions of theory have hitherto been unclear, but in this paper the existence of equilibrium is established in circumstances where nonstandard deviations are admitted. Equilibrium is guaranteed even when different investors use different measures of deviation and thereby end up with portfolios scaled from different master funds. Whether they employ the same measure or not, they may impose caps on deviation, which likewise may be different.

While it is commonly believed that derivative instruments are a recent invention, we document the existence of forward contracts for the sale of wool in medieval England around 700 years ago. The contracts were generally entered into by English monasteries, who frequently sold their wool for up to 20 years in advance to mostly foreign and particularly Italian merchants. Employing a unique source of data collected by hand from the historical records, we determine the interest rates implied in these transactions and we also examine the efficiency of the forward and spot markets. The calculated interest rates average around 20%, in accordance with available information concerning the interest rates used in other types of transactions at that time. Perhaps surprisingly, we also find little evidence of informational inefficiencies in these markets.

We reexamine the relative importance of earnings and operating cash flows in equity valuation. In contrast to previous studies that use stock returns (Dechow 1994) or future operating cash flows (Barth et al. 2001), we use ex post intrinsic value of equity as the criterion for comparison. We determine ex post intrinsic value of equity by discounting future dividends over a three-year horizon and market price at the end of the horizon by industry cost of equity. The advantage of the ex post intrinsic value measure over stock returns is that it is not contaminated by the stock market's fixation on reported earnings (Sloan 1996). Also, unlike finite horizon future operating cash flows, ex post intrinsic values better reflect the magnitude, timing, and uncertainty of investors' future cash flows (SFAC No. 1, FASB 1978). Our results suggest that accrualbased earnings dominate operating cash flows as a summary indicator of ex post intrinsic value.

We provide a theoretical investigation of the effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on auditing intensity and internal control strength. We propose a model of strategic auditing in which the auditor can use resources for both internal control tests and substantive tests, while the manager can choose the strength of internal controls and the amount of fraud. We find that control tests are a valuable tool for the auditor when control strength is informative about the likelihood of fraud. We find that Sarbanes-Oxley has the desired effect of inducing stronger internal control systems and less fraud, but does not necessarily induce higher levels of control testing. Our model suggests that audit risk increases as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

We test whether executive stock ownership affects firm payouts using the 2003 dividend tax cut to identify an exogenous change in the after‐tax value of dividends. We find that executives with higher ownership were more likely to increase dividends after the tax cut in 2003, whereas no relation is found in periods when the dividend tax rate was higher. Relative to previous years, firms that initiated dividends in 2003 were more likely to reduce repurchases. The stock price reaction to the tax cut suggests that the substitution of dividends for repurchases may have been anticipated, consistent with agency conflicts.

We study a one-dimensional Hotelling-Downs model of electoral competition with the following innovation: a fraction of candidates have “character” and are exogenously committed to a campaign platform; this is unobservable to voters. Character is desirable, and a voter's utility is a convex combination of standard policy preferences and her assessment of a candidate's character. This structure induces a signaling game between strategic candidates and voters, since a policy platform affects voters' utilities not only directly, but also indirectly through inferences about a candidate's character. The model generates a number of predictions, starting with a failure of the median voter theorem.

Systematic asymmetries in exchange behavior have been widely interpreted as support for “endowment effect theory,” an application of prospect theory positing that loss aversion and utility function kinks set by entitlements explain observed asymmetries. We experimentally test an alternative explanation, namely, that asymmetries are explained by classical preference theories finding influence through the experimental procedures typically used. Contrary to the predictions of endowment effect theory, we observe no asymmetries when we modify procedures to remove the influence of classical preference theories. When we return to traditional-type procedures, however, the asymmetries reappear. The results support explanations based in classical preference theories and reject endowment effect theory.