This paper studies the mechanism of adverse selection in the credit market using a sample of mortgage applications that are approved by lenders but rejected by applicants. We find that a low-risk applicant is more likely to reject a loan offer, except when the offer is made by an informed lender. Using jumbo mortgage and loan acceptance rate data to proxy for the information advantage, we find that lenders with a lower likelihood of being rejected are indeed better informed than others.

We explore theoretically and empirically the relationship between firm productivity and liquidity management in the presence of financial frictions. We build a dynamic investment model and show that, counter to basic economic intuition, more productive firms could demand less capital assets and hold more liquid assets compared to less productive firms when financing costs are sufficiently high. We empirically test this prediction using a comprehensive dataset of Chinese manufacturers and find that more productive firms indeed hold less capital and more cash. We do not, however, observe this for US manufacturers. Our study suggests a larger capital misallocation problem in markets with significant financing frictions than previously documented.

Non-controlling large shareholders play an important role in corporate governance in emerging markets where controlling shareholder expropriation is a major concern. We argue that non-controlling large shareholders are faced with two non-conflicting incentives: to take advantage of their information advantage and obtain positive abnormal returns when they trade company shares, and to serve as effective monitors and minimize controlling shareholders' appropriation of company wealth. Using a sample of large shareholders' selling events upon the expiration of the lockup period following the split-share structure reform in China, we find that non-controlling large shareholders successfully time the market, as shown by their positive abnormal returns when selling their shares. Their returns are higher if they have a greater information advantage. Furthermore, the positive returns of the controlling large shareholder are negatively related to non-controlling large shareholders' ownership, suggesting that non-controlling large shareholders play a monitoring role and prevent controlling shareholders from looting the company. We also show that large shareholders affiliated with the controlling shareholders are not subject to as high a level of monitoring as those controlling shareholders are. Furthermore, both firm opaqueness and the severity of agency cost affect the quality of non-controlling large shareholders' monitoring.

This paper examines economic consequences of a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission regulation that mandated public firms to disclose their governance policies on related-party transactions (RPTs). Employing hand-collected RPT data for S&P 1500 firms, we find that the initiation of RPT governance disclosure significantly reduces the occurrence of RPTs, and that the reduction in RPTs is negatively associated with the implied cost of capital (ICC) and positively related to Tobin's Q. These effects are more pronounced for low-monitored firms and for firms with RPTs that are more likely to be opportunistic. We further find that firms with a formal written policy, a designated committee to review and approve RPTs, or more extensive disclosure on RPT governance benefit in terms of lower ICC.

We consolidate a large number of mean-significant anomalies into cluster portfolios. More than a third of cluster portfolios remain significant under the Hou et al. (2020) five-factor model — the best performing among six benchmark models tested. A best-first search yields nine factors that subsume all cluster portfolios as well as all significant anomalies, demonstrating the feasibility of a parsimonious description of average realised returns. The expected growth factor (EG) and a cluster portfolio linked to accruals are prominent factors that improve pricing performance. The search-generated model produces a monthly maximum squared Sharpe ratio of 0.51, considerably higher than current benchmark models.

Our paper analyzes the geographical preferences of hedge fund investors and the implication of these preferences for hedge fund performance. We find that funds of hedge funds overweigh their investments in hedge funds located in the same geographical areas and that funds with a stronger local bias exhibit superior performance. Local bias also gives rise to excess flow comovement and extreme return clustering within geographic areas. Overall, our results suggest that while funds of funds benefit from local advantages, their local bias also creates market segmentation that can destabilize the underlying hedge funds.

Most anomalies fail to hold up to currently acceptable standards for empirical finance. With microcaps mitigated via NYSE breakpoints and value-weighted returns, 65% of the 452 anomalies in our extensive data library, including 96% of the trading frictions category, cannot clear the single test hurdle of the absolute t-value of 1.96. Imposing the higher multiple test hurdle of 2.78 at the 5% significance level raises the failure rate to 82%. Even for replicated anomalies, their economic magnitudes are much smaller than originally reported. In all, capital markets are more efficient than previously recognized. Received June 12, 2017; editorial decision October 29, 2018 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.

A detailed treatment of aggregation and capital heterogeneity substantially improves the performance of the investment CAPM. Firm-level predicted returns are constructed from firm-level accounting variables and aggregated to the portfolio level to match with portfolio-level stock returns. Working capital forms a separate productive input besides physical capital. The model simultaneously fits the value, momentum, investment, and profitability premiums and partially explains positive stock-fundamental return correlations, the procyclical and short-term dynamics of the momentum and profitability premiums, and the countercyclical and long-term dynamics of the value and investment premiums. However, the model falls short in explaining momentum crashes. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online..

A major threat to the development of financial markets in emerging markets is “tunneling.” In China, this took on the form of controlling shareholders diverting assets from listed firms or coercing firms to serve as guarantors on questionable loans. A new set of rules enacted in 2005 prohibited asset diversion for “non-operational” purposes. Firms complying with these rules have experienced a reduction in related party transactions, an increase in investment, and better performance. In contrast, another set of contemporary rules, which aimed to standardize the practice of firms providing loan guarantees, has had very little impact. We attribute the contrasting design, implementation, and effectiveness of these two sets of rules to the difference in enforcement costs of the two types of tunneling activities. Relative to loan guarantees, it is much easier for a third party to determine (ex ante) whether a particular form of diversion destroys firm value, and to verify (ex post) that the losses to the firm resulted from the diversion. Our results highlight the importance of enforceability—laws and regulations that can be enforced at lower costs are more likely to succeed, especially in countries with underdeveloped formal institutions.

Following an exogenous regulation change in China, we examine the impact of company visit disclosures on the fairness of market information acquisition. Before July 2012, company visits to Chinese listed firms were vaguely disclosed in annual reports long after they were conducted. After that, they were disclosed in detail within two trading days of their completion. Market reactions around visits are much stronger and more predictive of firms' future earnings if visits occurred after July 2012 and, thus, were disclosed in a timelier and more detailed manner. The timely disclosure of visit details also improves the forecast accuracy of non-visiting analysts, reduces forecast dispersion among analysts, and weakens the relative information advantages of visiting analysts. Because of this, visits are more concentrated on firms with poorer information environments, larger sizes, and manufacturing firms after July 2012, i.e., firms offering visitors larger potential benefits. In summary, the timely disclosure of visit details improves the fairness of information acquisition and decreases information asymmetry while causing information chilling effects for firms that provide fewer potential benefits to visitors.