[Pensions and deferred compensation represent substantial components of CEO incentives. We study stockholder and bondholder reactions to companies' initial reports of CEOs' inside debt positions following a 2007 SEC disclosure reform. We find that bond prices rise, equity prices fall, and the volatility of both securities drops for firms whose CEOs have sizeable defined benefit pensions or deferred compensation. Similar changes occur for credit default swap spreads and exchange-traded options. The results indicate a reduction in firm risk, a transfer of value from equity toward debt, and an overall destruction of enterprise value when CEOs' inside debt holdings are large.]

[This article studies whether the volume and composition of capital flows affect the degree of credit crunch during the 2007—2009 crisis. Using data on 3,823 firms in 24 emerging countries, we find that, on average, the decline in stock prices was more severe for firms that are intrinsically more dependent on external finance for working capital. Interestingly, while the volume of capital flows per se has no significant effect, the composition matters a lot. In particular, greater dependence on non-FDI capital inflows before the crisis worsens the credit crunch during the crisis, while exposure to FDI alleviates the liquidity constraint.]

This study examines companies with two classes of shares that entitle their holders to identical cash flow and voting rights but that are available to mutually exclusive sets of investors: A shares to domestic investors and B shares to foreign investors. Price differences between A and B shares are higher in firms with a greater disparity in the disclosures that they make to domestic and foreign investors. This association is more pronounced when the cost (benefit) of information transfer is higher (lower). The results suggest that disclosure disparity creates meaningful differences in investors' average information precision across A and B shares and thus influences the cross-sectional variation in price differences.

Durable consumption growth is persistent and predicted by the price–dividend ratio. This provides strong and direct evidence for the existence of a highly persistent expected component. Durable consumption growth is left-skewed and exhibits time-varying volatility. I model durable consumption growth as containing a persistent expected component and driven by counter-cyclical volatility, nondurable consumption as a random walk, and dividend growth as exposed to the expected component of durable consumption growth. Together with nonseparable Epstein-Zin preferences, the model demonstrates that long-run risk in durable consumption can explain major asset market phenomena. The model also generates an upward-sloping real term structure.

This article endogenizes information acquisition and portfolio delegation in a one-period strategic trading model. We find that, when the informed portfolio manager is relatively risk tolerant (averse), price informativeness increases (decreases) with the amount of noise trading. When noise trading is endogenized, the linear equilibrium in the traditional literature breaks down under a wide range of parameter values. In contrast, a linear equilibrium always exists in our model. In a conventional portfolio delegation model under a competitive partial equilibrium, the manager's effort of acquiring information is independent of a linear incentive contract. In our strategic trading model, however, a higher-powered linear contract induces the manager to exert more effort for information acquisition. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.

[This article endogenizes information acquisition and portfolio delegation in a one-period strategic trading model. We find that, when the informed portfolio manager is relatively risk tolerant (averse), price informativeness increases (decreases) with the amount of noise trading. When noise trading is endogenized, the linear equilibrium in the traditional literature breaks down under a wide range of parameter values. In contrast, a linear equilibrium always exists in our model. In a conventional portfolio delegation model under a competitive partial equilibrium, the manager's effort of acquiring information is independent of a linear incentive contract. In our strategic trading model, however, a higher-powered linear contract induces the manager to exert more effort for information acquisition.]

Pensions and deferred compensation represent substantial components of CEO incentives. We study stockholder and bondholder reactions to companies' initial reports of CEOs' inside debt positions following a 2007 SEC disclosure reform. We find that bond prices rise, equity prices fall, and the volatility of both securities drops for firms whose CEOs have sizeable defined benefit pensions or deferred compensation. Similar changes occur for credit default swap spreads and exchange-traded options. The results indicate a reduction in firm risk, a transfer of value from equity toward debt, and an overall destruction of enterprise value when CEOs' inside debt holdings are large.

A key distinction between some models of IPO pricing (e.g., auctions and bookbuilding) and others (e.g., fixed-priced models) is whether price discovery occurs in the primary or secondary market. Higher investment bank reputation is associated with 1) more active filing price revisions and 2) reduced secondary market volatility, indicating greater resolution of uncertainty before trading begins. Revisions of nonreputable banks cluster on exactly zero dollars. Finally, the “partial adjustment” phenomenon – often attributed to information aggregation – is primarily due to the behavior of reputable underwriters. We conclude that theoretical models of primary market information aggregation are better suited for reputable underwriters.

We argue that the entry of commercial banks into bond underwriting led to the evolution of co-led underwriting arrangements and lowered the screening incentives of underwriters. Lead underwriters in co-led syndicates faced weaker incentives to screen issuer quality. In boom markets, issues underwritten by co-led syndicates were more likely to be involved in financial misrepresentation events. Underwriter incentives in co-led syndicates were particularly weak in industries where commercial banks stole substantial market share. Similar patterns do not hold in bust markets where investors are likely to engage in their own information collection efforts. Our results suggest that competition may have an adverse effect on the incentives of financial intermediaries in market environments where their information production is more valuable to investors.