Market reactions to non-fundamental news (or no-news) reverse for extreme firm information environments. A one percentage increase in intangible returns for small firms (large firms) lead to a 2.33% decrease (0.70% increase) in monthly returns over the next 12months. The results are robust to firm characteristics adjustments, alternative measures of firm information environment and private information, idiosyncratic risk, and microstructure effects. The results are consistent with the cross-sectional findings of confirmation bias, where investors show stronger bias when the information environment is rich. We derive a model with confirmation bias that further explains the cross-sectional momentum pattern for the majority of firms in the market.

This paper investigates whether joint ventures and strategic alliances create value for bondholders by examining the bond market’s reaction to announcements of these two types of cooperative business activities. Based on 2964 announcements from 1985 to 2011, we find that joint ventures and strategic alliances create significant value for bondholders. The average two-month abnormal bond return is 0.64% for joint ventures and 0.70% for strategic alliances. We find no evidence of a wealth transfer between the bondholders and stockholders. We further explore the determinants of bond value creation through hypotheses on the synergy effect, the alleviation of financial constraints, and real options. The results of our study show that financial synergy is a main driver of bondholder wealth effects in joint ventures, while operating synergy is a dominant factor in strategic alliances. We also find evidence to support the real option hypothesis for both events. Finally, we show that the structure of bond contracts plays an important role in the link between synergy and abnormal bond returns.

We formalize the Keynesian insight that aggregate demand driven by sentiments can generate output fluctuations under rational expectations. When production decisions must be made under imperfect information about demand, optimal decisions based on sentiments can generate stochastic self-fulfilling rational expectations equilibria in standard economies without persistent informational frictions, externalities, nonconvexities, or strategic complementarities in production. The models we consider are deliberately simple, but could serve as benchmarks for more complicated equilibrium models with additional features.