Research in finance and macroeconomics has routinely employed multiple horizons to test asset return predictability. In a simple predictive regression model, we find the popular scaled test can have zero power when the predictor is not sufficiently persistent. A new test based on implication of the short-run model is suggested and is shown to be uniformly more powerful than the scaled test. The new test can accommodate multiple predictors. Compared with various other widely used tests, simulation experiments demonstrate remarkable finite-sample performance. We reexamine the predictive ability of various popular predictors for aggregate equity premium.

Discrete recognition is a long-standing and ubiquitous accounting practice, but it has been widely criticized for suppressing information and inducing accounting-motivated transactions. We study a model to examine the economic consequences of shifting away from discrete recognition to a continuous measurement approach. Without manipulation, discrete recognition is less informative than the continuous approach. However, the continuous regime induces more manipulation. The equilibrium informativeness is determined by both the accounting standard and endogenous manipulation. Discrete recognition is more informative than its continuous counterpart precisely when manipulation is a severe threat. We respond to the recent call in Kothari, Ramanna, and Skinner (2010) for using positive accounting theory to explain certain long-standing accounting practices. We also discuss the model's implications for fair value accounting.

We examine the impact of government economic policy uncertainty (GEPU) on corporate innovation and identify a cost-of-capital transmission channel. We find that GEPU increases firms’ cost of capital, which translates into lower innovation. As economic policy uncertainty rises, firms with more exposure to such uncertainty face a higher weighted average cost of capital and innovate less. Innovations of financially constrained firms and firms relying on external finance in a competitive environment are affected more. Our study provides novel evidence that higher economic policy uncertainty hinders innovation not only through the traditional investment irreversibility channel, but also through the cost-of-capital channel.

Households hold undiversified stock portfolios of firms headquartered near their city of residence. Leading explanations assign a causal role for proximity. The literature neglects that distance is endogenous. Households may locate based on unobservables such as optimism about a city’s economic prospects, which can be correlated with latent local-stock demand. We use location-choice models to account for this selection. We propose as instruments that older households prefer to locate in recreational areas for non-pecuniary reasons. Our analysis based on a widely used household data set yields significantly smaller estimates for proximity in determining portfolio choice compared to those in the literature.

We show that randomly-selected Regulation SHO pilot firms respond to an increased threat of short selling by significantly improving their employee relations. Pilot firms enhance employee security to reduce the likelihood of employee-related negative publicity. The reduction of workplace concerns is most evident among pilot firms with higher degree of earnings manipulation, short interest potential, likelihood of labor disputes and employee whistle-blowing. Pilot firms experience better stock performance during the post Reg-SHO period after easing workplace concerns. Overall, our study provides novel evidence that the removal of short-selling constraints has a real effect on labor relations.

We study the role of the contractual time horizon of chief executive officers (CEOs) for CEO turnover and corporate policies. Using hand-collected data on 3,954 fixed-term CEO contracts, we show that remaining time under contract predicts CEO turnover. When contracts are close to expiration, turnover is more likely and is more sensitive to performance. We also show a positive within-CEO relation between remaining time under contract and firm risk. Our results are similar across short and long contracts and are driven neither by firm or CEO survival, nor technological cycles. They are consistent with incentives to take long-term projects with interim volatility.

We show that time-varying risk premium in financial markets can explain a key, yet puzzling, feature of labor markets: the large differences in unemployment risk across worker age groups over the business cycle. Our search model features a time-varying risk premium and learning about unobserved heterogeneity in worker productivity. Their interaction generates large real effects through firms’ labor policies. Our model predicts higher unemployment risk of younger workers relative to prime-age workers when risk premium is high, and the employment ratio of prime-age to young workers to be more cyclical in high beta industries. We find empirical support for these predictions.

This paper investigates whether being a local leader affects a firm's stock price crash risk. We find that local leadership, in terms of being a relatively large firm in a surrounding locality, decreases a firm's stock price crash risk. The results are robust to both an instrumental variable and a difference-in-differences regression approach. We also document that the impact on crash risk depends on the extent to which local communities are likely to be monitoring local firms through their stock market participation rates, the information environment surrounding these firms, and the level of industry competition. Overall, our results highlight a novel benefit of being a local leader, as it is associated with a higher level of local monitoring which renders the firm less prone to crash risk.