AFA PhD Student Poster Session
Poster Session
Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 8:00 AM - 8:30 PM (CST)
Bailouts, Bail-ins, and Banking Industry Dynamics
Abstract
Following bailouts of distressed, big banks during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), policymakers adopted a new way to resolve banks called the "bail-in". Bail-in policies are designed to allow these systemically important banks to restructure their liabilities and continue operating while still imposing the losses of the bank upon their shareholders and creditors. This policy change altered banks' exit decisions, risk-taking, lending, borrowing, and the price and repayment of their debt. To quantify and decompose the impact of these changes on the aggregate banking industry, I build a quantitative model of heterogeneous bank entry and exit with bailouts for large banks and calibrate to the pre-GFC U.S. banking industry. In a counterfactual in which bail-in replaces bailout, uninsured debt prices are higher, and banks decrease their leverage from 90% to 69%. With lower leverage, banks can better weather adverse shocks to their asset value and the failure rate drops 64%. Higher funding costs also change the size distribution of banks by suppressing each bank's individual lending, but permitting greater entry to meet loan demand. Further, since fewer banks can afford to grow large, the number of big banks decreases.Bank Competition and Entrepreneurial Gaps Evidence from Bank Deregulation
Abstract
This paper provides evidence that bank competition reduces gender and racial gaps in entrepreneurship by improving banking services and reducing discrimination. Exploiting the interstate bank deregulation from 1994 to 2021, I find that stronger bank competition increases the quantity and quality of banking services provided to minority borrowers. I develop a novel measure of bank discrimination based on the narrative information extracted from the complaints filed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) using textual analysis. Using this measure, I find that bank competition reduces complaints about discrimination. Owing to the improved banking services and reduced discrimination, bank competition reduces the entrepreneurial gaps by loosening the financial constraints of female and minority entrepreneurs. At the firm level, relaxed financial constraints reduce the gender and racial gap in firm performance. As a consequence, equal access to entrepreneurial opportunities reduces gender and racial disparities in entrepreneurial equity and thus fosters wealth equality. Finally, I present evidence that bank competition can reduce racial disparities in access to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans which are fully guaranteed by the federal government and risk-free. This unique setting eliminates the concern that disparities in credit risk may drive the entrepreneurial gaps. Overall, my results suggest that bank competition can promote equity in access to finance and generate equitable economic growth.Belief Polarization, Unconscious Bias, and Financial Markets
Abstract
This paper studies how the social transmission of information with echo chambers affects financial markets. In an equilibrium model, investors trade competitively in the market based on public information revealed by asset prices and private information accumulated through word-of-mouth communication in echo chambers. I show that unconscious biases are endogenously generated in investors' private signals when information percolates with echo chambers. The unconscious biases drive investors' polarized views, lead to belief polarization, generate excess trading volume, and impact assets' expected returns. The information-sharing process amplifies these effects. The public asset prices help dampen belief polarization but do not fully eliminate investors' unconscious biases.Beta X Forecast Dispersion
Abstract
We find that a positive (negative) CAPM security market line prevails for firms with low (high) dispersion in analysts’ earnings forecasts, which holds irrespective of shortsale constraints. When heterogeneous investors disagree on cash flow growth under uncertainty, our theory states that the interaction between market beta and forecast dispersion is an increasing, convex function of stock prices and therefore captures temporary overpricing. Fama-MacBeth tests show that the interaction significantly absorbs cross-sectional mispricing, producing an estimated price of market risk compatible with the observed equity premium. Our results provide insights into the beta anomaly and “tales” of the CAPM’s conditional performance.The Better Angels of our Nature?
Abstract
What characterizes the business angels that invest in early stage innovative firms and what determines their investment performance? We use Norwegian population data on equity transactions for the years 2004–2018 and define an angel investor as an individual who makes an investment in a potentially innovative startup but is not a part of that firm’s founding team. Angel investors are younger, more often male, and more likely themselves to be entrepreneurs. We find that angel investors are more active in the public market, measured by a greater number of transactions and larger investment amounts, and earn higher returns in their public stock investments than other individual investors. Their angel investment returns in innovative firms are highly skewed and we document a pronounced performance persistence in angel investments among angel investors. This pattern is not likely to be driven by contemporaneous exposure to economy-wide shocks. Investor fixed effects explain about 35% of the total variation in angel investment performance—far more than any other observable factor. Our results point to the importance of considering whether any given policy design mainly will serve to benefit people already well of and whether it will serve to push individuals with low investment ability into excessively risky savings portfolios.Beyond Peers: Cross-Industry Competition Communities and Strategic Financing
Abstract
Using data on US firms' self-declared competition networks, we identify above ten topology-based communities, defined as groups of firms within or across industries that are closely related through direct or indirect competition. Empirically, we document complementarity between firms' leverage and leverage in the community. We then build a model in which firms strategically respond to their direct and indirect competitors in the community in both financing and product market actions. Due to these strategic interactions, any ex-ante shock onto a firm can impact any other firm's capital structure decision in the same community via a non-linear non-monotone mechanism. Without requiring strategic substitute in product competition, our model predicts complementary financing when the competition community's network structure is of heavy-tailed node degree distribution.Learning from Machines: Can CEO Vocal Cues Help to Predict Future Firm Performance?
Abstract
I apply tailored deep learning models on CEO voiceprints of earnings conference calls to predict the firm's future performance as measured by analyst recommendation changes, unexpected earnings, and cumulative abnormal returns. I apply K-fold cross-validation to ensure the stability of my deep-learning models. Using an out-of-sample evaluation, I predict a firm's short-term and long-term future performance above the benchmark level after controlling for textual information and firm characteristics. In other words, how firm information is communicated in addition to the content can affect the market perception of a firm. This study adds new evidence to audio recordings of conference calls containing valuable information about a firm's fundamentals, incremental to qualitative "soft" information conveyed by textual content, and quantitative earnings information. My method refines and expands the vocal sentiment measures in the literature.Cash Flow Duration, Financial Constraints, and the Stock Market Sensitivity to Monetary Policy
Abstract
An open question in macro-finance concerns the differing reactions of growth and value stocks to monetary policy. I address this question using a high-frequency event-study and find that growth stocks respond significantly more to policy surprises. This finding is consistent across single stocks, portfolios, and stock indexes and persists for several days post-FOMC announcement. I show that these results are driven by cash flow duration, which contradicts earlier studies arguing that the degree of financial constraint is the predominant driver. Higher duration induces a larger exposure to discount rates news, which is more sensitivity to monetary policy than cash flow news. Finally, these empirical findings can be explained by a reduced-form asset pricing model in which firms heterogeneity is modelled by cash flow duration. The model generates a higher sensitivity of growth stocks to monetary policy while preserving the value premium.CLOs’ Trading of Brown Loans When Climate Change Draws Attention
Abstract
Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) are non-bank entities securitizing high-yield loans and trading these on secondary markets. They are decisive for the functioning of the leveraged loan market and therefore refinancing opportunities of firms. We assess how CLOs change their trading behavior when public attention to climate change rises. We find that CLOs increase exposure to high emission loans at lower prices. CLOs with experience in trading brown loans and younger CLOs with a stable liability structure drive the effects. We conclude that CLOs take on the role of arbitrageurs when public attention to climate change is pronounced.Collateral Values and Global Production Networks
Abstract
Firms are interconnected through global production networks. In this study, I investigate how changes in a firm’s collateral value affect its supply chain linkages with international trade partners. I use a plausibly exogenous shock to the real estate market in China, which reduced the value of firms’ real estate holdings, and find an 11.1% reduction in exports to trade partners in the US. Financially constrained firms affected by the shock respond by increasing product prices, potentially compromising long-term customer relationships. Connected U.S. customers reallocate their imports to alternative suppliers, thereby inducing a shift to the global production network structure. My findings highlight the role of collateral value fluctuations, interacting with financial frictions, in trade partnership adjustment.Commitment in Debt Financing: The Role of Creditor Dispersion
Abstract
In the presence of limited contract enforcement, borrowers might be unable to commit to repay their debt or avoid actions that hurt creditors' interest after borrowing, e.g., borrowers can have incentives to renegotiate their debt. This lack of commitment can reduce firms' ability to borrow in the first place. In this paper, I provide evidence of the theoretical insight that dispersed creditors can help address this commitment problem in debt markets. Intuitively, dispersed creditors face coordination problems that make defaults and renegotiations costly, improving debtors' incentives to repay and avoid such delinquency events. I study this idea by analyzing its implications for bankruptcy or reorganization law. Legal reforms that facilitate creditor coordination and renegotiation can reduce the ex-post costs of financial distress. However, by facilitating creditor coordination, these reforms can also limit borrowers' ability to commit and borrow using creditor dispersion. I label this effect as the commitment channel and study its importance using a unique reform in Korea, which only affects how creditors make collective decisions (creditor voting rules in private workouts). I isolate the commitment channel by contrasting firms based on their exposure to this channel. To guide this analysis, I present a theoretical framework predicting which firms should rely more on creditor dispersion for commitment and, thus, be more affected by the commitment channel. Using hand-collected data on firm-creditor relationships, I show that firms with high exposure to the commitment channel experience a significant decrease in their borrowing and rely less on creditor dispersion after the reform. Moreover, consistent with the view that these issues are less relevant when creditors are protected by asset liquidations, these effects are concentrated among firms lacking easy-to-liquidate assets. The analysis highlights the role of creditor dispersion as a commitment device even in a legal system with strong creditor protection, such as Korea. My findings also suggest how reforms designed to improve ex-post efficiency in financial distress, a main goal of reorganization law in many countries (e.g., Chapter 11 in the U.S.), can have negative ex-ante effects on the ability of many firms to raise debt financing.Connections over Competence: The Impact of Political Ties on Sell-Side Research Quality
Abstract
There is academic debate on whether corruption is socially efficient. In this paper, we investigate whether there is corrupt hiring of politically connected financial analysts at China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and the consequences of such corruption. Using a textual measure of A-share healthcare analysts’ industry knowledge, we find that politically connected analysts have lower research quality compared with merit-based hires. In addition, politically connected analysts tend to plagiarize other analysts and follow salient news, and investors lose 12.01% on average following their research recommendations. In return for hiring politically connected analysts, directors at SOE brokerages tend to be promoted by China’s securities regulators. After China’s anti-corruption campaign reached the financial sector, many analysts at SOE brokerages lost their political ties and the stricter top-down monitoring is likely to reduce rent seeking. After this exogenous shock, our difference-in-differences tests show that research quality improves at local SOEs and informational efficiency increases for firms most intensely covered by local SOEs relative to non-SOE brokerages. Contrary to the view that corruption merely redistributes resources to bureaucrats, our results suggest that corrupt hiring of politically connected analysts may distort the allocation of employment opportunities, reduce financial market efficiency and impose real costs on investors.The Consequences of Index Investing on Managerial Incentives
Abstract
I develop a model that analyzes how index investing impacts optimal managerial contracts. Index investors are constrained to purchase all risky assets in a fixed proportion, so information that affects their demand for the index gets reflected in all the constituent stock prices. Suppose a manager takes a value-enhancing action. Index investors now expect higher index payoffs and buy more of the index, which boosts the stock prices of all index firms. Thus, the prices of other index firms are positively related to and contain unique information about the manager’s effort. The optimal contract puts a positive weight on the index to increase the effort sensitivity of the manager’s pay, not to reduce his risk. Relative performance evaluation is, therefore, not optimal in this setting.Corporate ESG Profiles and Consumption
Abstract
Using transaction-level credit card data from a leading Chinese commercial bank, we find that consumers increase quarterly consumption by 5.3 % when the firm's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating increases by one unit. The positive news about firms and consumer attention play significant roles in the relationship between firms' ESG profiles and consumption. The response is more pronounced among female, unmarried, younger, and more educated consumers, and for nondurable items. To address endogeneity concerns, we perform a difference-in-differences analysis. Overall, our study provides insight into the impact of ESG performance on credit card spending.The Cost of Capital and the Innovative Efficiency of Public Firms
Abstract
We study the effects of the cost of capital on innovative efficiency and output. Using firm peer shocks to the discount-rate component of equity valuation, we show that costlier capital increases successful patent applications, future patent citations, and market valuation of future patents. An interquartile increase in the cost of capital increases the innovative efficiency per dollar of intangibles by 0.06 of the outcome’s standard deviation or 11% of the sample average output per year. We show that in response to our proxy of adverse shocks to cost of capital, firms reduce capital and labor expenditures. They also tend to shrink their sales and fixed assets but maintain their R&D expenditures. This suggests that the high adjustment costs in R&D expenditures are consistent with firm value maximization.Costly Entry and Competition: Evidence from Occupational Licensing from the Real Estate Industry
Abstract
In this paper I ask how the costliness of occupational licensing impacts an industry's employment, market concentration, and consumer outcomes. I study this in the setting of financial intermediaton, and in particular the real estate industry, which has two separate types of licenses with varying entry barriers: entry-level licensed “salespeople' who must work for professional-level licensed “brokers.' I construct a novel dataset of the universe of real estate licensees in a number of states matched with CoreLogic Multiple Listing Services (MLS) data. Exploiting a policy change in Texas in 2012 which announced a future increase in the cost of entry for brokers, the professional level of licensee, I find that the policy led to an unintended increase in employment at the professional level (and therefore competition) with no spillover to the entry level. As a result, market concentration decreases for the sale-side agents, while agent quality improves. This translates into a higher probability of sale.COVID-19 Pandemic, Hate Crimes, and Analyst Forecast Quality
Abstract
We examine how forecast behaviors of East Asian financial analysts would change in the face of the escalated crimes against Asians amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a Difference-in-Differences approach, we demonstrate that the forecast quality of East Asian analysts deteriorates during the pandemic. In particular, compared with non-East-Asian analysts, East Asian analysts issue financial forecasts with lower degree of boldness, higher degree of pessimism, lower updating frequency, and less timely during the pandemic. Utilizing a staggered Difference-in-Differences approach, we identify Anti-Asian hate crimes and prolonged societal pressures stemming from the aftermath of the pandemic as the major causes for the inferior performance of East Asian analysts. Consequently, the inferior forecast quality of East Asian financial analysts has a negative effect on post-earnings announcement abnormal returns. Our findings imply that social bias and violence against a certain ethnic group have detrimental impacts on analyst forecast quality and market efficiency.Ahead of the Breach: Anticipatory Approaches to Mitigating Ex-post Costs of Cyber Breaches
Abstract
This study critically evaluates the proactive cybersecurity strategies of managers in publicly traded companies, leveraging a unique dataset of actual cybersecurity risk measures from a leading cybersecurity scores company. I find that managers exhibit an awareness of their cybersecurity risks and engage in preemptive actions to either enhance their cyber defenses, acquire cyber insurance, or increase cash reserves before a breach or some combination of these actions. This investigation reveals that while some firms bolster their cyber defenses, others opt for cyber insurance and increased cash reserves as precautionary measures. The findings indicate that cyber insurance does not complement but rather substitutes for investment in cyber defense mechanisms. This substitution raises concerns about the cyber insurance market’s adverse selection and moral hazard problems.Decoding Anomalies through Alpha Dynamics
Abstract
This paper studies explanations of anomalies by analyzing how alphas of the characteristic-sorted portfolio evolve over months after the sorting period, referred to as the ”alpha dynamic”. In contrast, prior studies focus on the average of alphas after sorting. I develop new tests to statistically examine alpha dynamic patterns. I find that alpha dynamics provide new insights in evaluating whether anomalies (1) exist, (2) are profitable after considering trading costs, and (3) are likely due to mispricing or rational expectations. Upon incorporating the impacts of alpha dynamics into these questions, an analysis of 205 anomalies reveals that relying solely on t tests may miss many real anomalies. This problem becomes more severe with higher t cutoff values (e.g., 3.0). Also, the after-cost profitability has been significantly underestimated. Further, in about 60% of anomalies, the observed alpha dynamic pattern conforms to existing behavioral models rather than rational models. Examples of well-known categories include net share issuance, idiosyncratic volatility, and momentum.Decoding Corporate Green Bonds: What Issuers Do With the Money and Their Real Impact
Abstract
I investigate the use of proceeds and the real impact of global corporate green bonds issued by non-financial firms, with a focus on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The research reveals that green bond proceeds are allocated at a slower pace, are not used for shareholder payouts, and are less likely to be used for debt rollover compared to conventional bonds. This unveils a distinct motivation for issuing green bonds in contrast to conventional bonds. Employing market-level greenium as an instrumental variable in a Difference-in-Differences (DID) framework, I investigate the causal impact of green bond issuance on firm-level GHG intensity. Although improvements in GHG intensity are observed through Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) and Event-study DID analyses, these improvements are not causally attributed to green bond issuance and are likely due to green initiatives that would have been funded regardless. I further explore the underlying mechanisms in this self-regulated market and find that repeat issuers voluntarily comply with the green bond framework, achieving tangible environmental improvements and giving credibility to the signal at issuance. The findings challenge the view that green bonds are simply conventional bonds with a “green” label and the view that green bonds causally lead to incremental sustainable outcomes.Delay Your Rivals: Vertical Integration in Securitization and Lending Competition
Abstract
We study the effects of vertical integration in the securitization chain on lending competition in the commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) market. We show that lenders that are vertically integrated (VI) with the investment bank structuring the CMBS originate loans that have rate spreads that are 9bps lower and have shorter a 14% shorter time from origination to securitization, conditional on observables. VI lenders also have larger market shares, consistent with their relatively lower spreads. To shed light on one mechanism, we show evidence that VI loans are prioritized over non-VI loans when constructing pools, which we call the ``prioritization' channel, and this leads to shorter times to securitization. This difference in time to securitization gets passed through to higher rates, which explains part of the difference in spreads. The spread and time to securitization results are stronger in quarters with low loan origination, which is exactly when we would expect this prioritization result to have stronger effect. Additionally, we show that prioritization channel impacts credit allocation and that the profitability of securitization is higher when the share of loans originated by non-VI lenders is higher, due to greater diversification of the loan pool. Finally, we construct a model of vertical integration in securitization and lending competition that highlights the problem the securitizer faces. The VI lender balances the benefit of including their rivals' loans when constructing the CMBS pool, which increases pool diversification, with the benefit of prioritizing their own loans, which lowers their own costs compared to their non-VI rivals, due to relatively shorter time from origination to securitization.Derivative-Market Leverage and Risk Premia Implications
Abstract
We use the futures commission merchants (FCMs) reports released by CFTC to construct a frequent (monthly) and timely (one-month delay) market-level leverage measure, based on the aggregate margin of market participants. The derivative-market leverage negatively (positively) predicts returns of risky (safe) assets, as a market indicator of the investors’ risk tolerance. This effect is robust across both futures and spot markets, persistent up to one year, and stronger during the deleveraging periods. The derivative-market leverage is responding to market uncertainty, co-moves with economic activities, but preceding capital demands. These results are consistent with a stylized model of the futures and spot markets.Pricing Disaster Risk in Corporate Bonds
Abstract
To explain the “credit spread puzzle” and study the implications of crisis risk oncorporate credit spreads, I propose a dynamic capital structural model with longterm
bond and disaster risk. The model reproduces the high corporate credit spread
and low default rate as observed in the data. Disaster risk affects corporate credit
spreads through default risk, risk premium, and corporate capital structure. Default
risk dominates other channels in disaster states. With disaster risk in normal times,
lower optimal capital levels and firm value lead to higher leverage and credit spread.
With more real and financial frictions, firms are more conservative and reduce their
leverage, giving rise to lower credit spreads. Following a realized disaster, financially
constrained firms lose more equity value, and their credit spreads sharply increase.
The Discordance Between “E” and “G” in ESG
Abstract
Previous studies suggest that environmental and social investment is a benefit to stakeholders, but might be a cost to shareholders. It is unclear whether corporate governance mechanism helps to resolve this conflict. We investigate this issue in the context of China where controlling rights overwhelming cash flow rights is common and the protection for minority shareholders is weak. We find that a firm’s environmental investment increases with its ownership divergence. This impact is more pronounced if a firm suffers greater environmental pressures. Our further analyses demonstrate that dividend cut increases, while the likelihood to initiate dividend and to receive environmental penalties decrease with control-ownership wedge following environmental investment. These findings indicate that controlling minority owners pursue environmental performance at the expense of other shareholders. This study sheds light on the discordance of corporate governance and environmental responsibility.Do Acquirers Pay Less for Unlisted Targets? Evidence from OTC Markets
Abstract
It is widely known that bidder announcement returns are higher when targets are unlisted (i.e., not traded on a stock exchange) than listed. However, the source of these gains - either because acquirers pay less or because deal value creation is greater - remains elusive due to data limitations. I introduce a set of deals to the M&A literature with a novel unlisted target type: firms with equity traded over the counter (OTC). This sample allows me to directly measure offer premiums and synergies in unlisted target deals for the first time. I show that (1) contrary to the conventional wisdom, premiums are higher - not lower - for OTC targets, (2) these high premiums originate from shared synergy gains rather than bidder overpayment, (3) the synergy gains are consistent with improvements to OTC targets’ access to capital, with a larger portion of synergies going to OTC target shareholders due to stronger bargaining, and (4) acquirer returns, synergies, and premiums are all higher for OTC targets that are closer to private firms (illiquid stock) than listed firms (liquid stock).Do Hedge Funds Exploit Material Nonpublic Information? Evidence from Corporate Bankruptcies
Abstract
Serving on the unsecured creditors' committee (UCC) of a bankrupt firm allows hedge funds to gain access to material nonpublic information. Although hedge funds are prohibited from trading bankrupt firms' securities with information access, less is known about whether such information access facilitates hedge funds' trading in securities of other firms. We show that hedge funds have higher portfolio turnover and make large trades in the few quarters after joining a UCC. Hedge funds do not trade differently after accessing public information of bankrupt firms, and other institutional investors do not experience abnormal portfolio turnover after joining a UCC. We find that hedge funds' large trades concentrate in stocks of firms that have close economic links with the bankrupt firm, and that these large trades are highly likely driven by UCC material nonpublic information. Combined, our findings suggest that hedge funds exploit material nonpublic information to trade across asset markets.Do Local Bank Branches Shape Mortgage Origination?
Abstract
What is the geographic scope of the U.S. mortgage markets? Can local bank branches influence mortgage origination? We seek to answer these questions by investigating the discretion of bank branch managers. For identification, we examine the role of their idiosyncratic experiences with mortgage origination. Using a novel dataset identifying bank branch managers and their career histories, we find that managers' past experiences with mortgage approval and pricing significantly influence their subsequent lending decisions even after they switch employments across firms and locations. These effects are largely driven by non-managerial experiences, suggesting that our results do not purely capture managerial “styles.” Our results are stronger for jumbo loans and loans to riskier borrowers, but are weaker in areas with more lenders present and in cases of higher delegation costs.Fixing the manager-branch pair, we observe that mortgage lending outcomes respond strongly (weakly) to monetary policy shocks and bank stress test results when those shocks conform to (contradict) managers' experiences. Overall, our evidence is consistent with local bank branches significantly shaping mortgage origination.Does Partisanship Affect Mutual Fund Firm-level Information Processing? Evidence from Textual Analysis on Earnings Calls
Abstract
This paper examines the influence of partisanship on mutual fund information processing at the firm level. Through textual analysis of earnings call transcripts, I identify partisan-sensitive topics, such as climate change, healthcare, and pandemic discussions. I find that Democratic funds react more strongly to topics aligned with the Democratic party’s advocacy of critical issues and tend to sell more stocks after firms increase discussions on these topics compared to Republican funds. The effect is more pronounced for funds with greater political polarization and firms with larger portfolio weights. Moreover, the observed overselling behavior by Democratic funds does not enhance fund performance, indicating partisan bias rather than rational expectations about future returns. Overall, these finding suggest that partisan funds react more intensely to information consistent with their pre-existing beliefs.Does Short-term Non-fundamental Mispricing Affect the Economy?
Abstract
I examine the real economic effects of short-term non-fundamental mispricing. To measure short-term mispricing, for two paired firms sharing a confusing ticker, extreme price movements of the big firm trigger the ticker-confusing trading, which results in non-fundamental price movements in the small firms. I find those mispricing shocks do attract insider trading and change a firm's use of internal capital markets. However, they do not impact a firm's use of external capital markets and its long-term investment behavior. The results suggest short-term mispricing shocks have limited economic effects.Does the Market Mis-Value Non-Executive Employee Diversity?
Abstract
This study examines whether the market is able to accurately assess the value of intangible assets such as human capital, especially its level of diversity. Using new measures of diversity among non-executive employees, I show that non-executive diversity has a strong relation with corporate innovation, a key long-run investment, but it does not have a strong impact on short-run corporate performance. The employee diversity-firm performance relation is stronger when middle-tier managers are more diverse. The market does not fully recognize the value of minority employees, potentially because it focuses more on short-term outcomes. During the 1990-2021 period, a trading strategy that exploits market mis-valuation earns an annualized risk-adjusted return of over 7%.Does Trading Volume Mitigate or Amplify Mispricing?
Abstract
We find that when volume is relatively low, trading volume is primarily driven by attention rather than disagreement. An increase in volume, reflecting heightened attention, can mitigate mispricing stemming from limited attention. In contrast, when volume is relatively high, we find a stronger correlation between volume and disagreement than attention. Here, an increase in volume, suggesting heightened disagreement, may enhance investor bias, thereby amplifying mispricing driven by such bias. Overall, whether trading volume amplifies or mitigates mispricing depends on both the volume state (high or low) and the source of mispricing, whether due to limited attention or investor bias.Earnings Announcements: Ex-ante Risk Premia
Abstract
We provide the first estimates of the ex-ante risk premia on earnings announcements from the forward-looking information of the options market. We find that the average earnings announcement risk premium is highly significant at 15 basis points, with substantial variation across firm and across time. Sorting by the estimated ex-ante risk premium generates a daily return spread of 32 bps between high and low terciles. Moreover, the estimated ex-ante risk premia provide new insights on what drives the well documented positive post-earnings-announcement drift and offer profitable straddle strategies.The Edge of Banks is Still Sharp: Evidence from Market Segmentation in the Conforming Loan Market
Abstract
Contrary to the prevalent perception of the conforming loan market as intensely competitive and homogeneous, my research reveals substantial market segmentation. I identify that for mortgages with comparable ex-ante risk attributes, banks that finance these mortgages using their balance sheets impose a premium varying between 9.1 and 12.8 basis points. I construct a model of lender competition that elucidates two key conditions necessary for yielding a positive premium: imperfect competition and heterogeneity in the cross-elasticity of demand among lenders. My empirical findings align with the first condition, as I illustrate that the premium elevates by 5.5 to 6.5 basis points with every standard deviation increase in local market concentration. Concurrently, in keeping with the second condition, I show that the premium ascends by 12.0 to 12.4 basis points for every ten-percentage point rise in local market demand for mortgages.The Effect of CEO Climate Awareness On Corporate Emissions
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of CEOs’ personal climate awareness on corporate greenhouse gas emissions, and the role of information in forming such awareness. Climate awareness of a CEO is measured by her experience of extreme weather during their college years (known to be the impressionable years) in combination with the availability of climate change information at the time. I find that high climate awareness of CEOs is associated with lower carbon intensity of their firms. The translation from extreme weather experience to climate awareness is facilitated by knowledge about climate change, thus, the emission reduction effect is driven by extreme weather experience gained textit{after} the science of climate change was introduced to the public. CEOs who were likely to encounter misinformation during their impressionable years tend to misinterpret their experience, such as regarding severe winter weather as counter-evidence for climate change, and generally overlooking extreme weather that is not directly related to rising temperatures. Evidence from plausibly exogenous CEO turnover supports the emission reduction effect of CEO climate awareness to be causal. This study presents CEO personal climate awareness as a determinant of corporate emission policies and shows that such awareness can be induced by a combination of extreme weather experience and climate change information. Adding to the literature about managers' personal experience, this study emphasizes the mediating role of information in translating experience into behaviours, highlighting that one's interpretation of her experience is as important as the experience itself.The Effect of Regulation on Inventor Mobility and Productivity
Abstract
Using new data on the compliance burden of regulation, I study how US administrative agencies affect innovation activities in public firms, which spend the most on R&D and produce the majority of innovation. I present evidence that firm-specific regulatory burden reduces patent output of public firms, but find little change in innovation capital (R&D). To examine innovation labor, I conduct inventor-level analyses, and provide evidence that inventors leave their firms and industries to avoid high burden environments. These turnover events sharply decrease subsequent individual productivity. In sum, I find that regulatory burden constrains innovative firms and reallocates high skilled labor to lower burden environments, disrupting corporate innovation processes.The Effect of Social Pressure on Firm-level Attention to Climate Change Exposure
Abstract
What makes a firm concern more about climate change than other firms? This paper examines the effect of social pressure on the amount of attention devoted to climate change topics by firm management. I show that climate change topics are more discussed during earnings calls when local stakeholders have geographically distant friends who are exposed to disaster events. The exogenous shocks to far-away friends should not affect local firms except through a social channel. I provide evidence that the effect leads to a real outcome, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. My findings also show that the effect diminishes over time, providing the policy implication that constant efforts to heighten climate risk awareness will enhance the effective implementation of sustainable behaviors among firms.Entrepreneurs of Circumstance: Labour Market Distress and Entrepreneurship
Abstract
I study individuals who become entrepreneurs following an industry downturn using the massive decline in oil prices in 2014 to understand the potential of entrepreneurship as an alternative career path for employees affected by industry downturns. The oil price decline resulted in increased entrepreneurial activity among oil workers in Norway. Compared to new entrepreneurs unaffected by the shock, such `entrepreneurs of circumstance' tend to originate from lower income levels within their respective companies. These entrepreneurs also run more profitable firms, and the difference in profitability is unique to the cohort of firms started by employees affected by the shock.An ETF-Based Measure of Stock Price Fragility
Abstract
A growing literature employs equity mutual fund flows to measure a stock’s exposureto non-fundamental demand risk - stock price fragility. However, this approach may be
biased by confounding fundamental information, potentially leading to underestimation of risk exposure. We propose an alternative method incorporating readily available
primary market data from exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This method significantly
enhances the predictive power of fragility in forecasting stock return volatility. More-
over, our measure captures the influence of increased ETF activeness while partially
capturing the effect of institutional investors’ ownership on price return volatility. Ad-
ditionally, our analysis reveals a decrease in the explanatory power of mutual fund-
based fragility. To rationalize our results, we develop a theoretical model of the effects
of non-fundamental demand on asset prices.
Firm-Level Political Risk and Intellectual Capital Investment: Does Managerial Ability Matter?
Abstract
This paper examines the impacts of firm-level political risks on intellectual capital investment and how managerial ability adjusts this correlation. Using a broad sample of U.S firms from 2002 to 2021, our results show that firms with higher political risks reduce their investment in intellectual capital. This impact is more prominent for firms with high financial distress, external financial dependence, and lower institutional ownership. Further, we find supportive evidence that managerial ability helps prevents a considerable proportion (around 20%–40%) of the destructive impact of political risk on intellectual capital investment, which is also driven by firm-specific characteristics. These findings are consistent under a battery of robustness tests and sensitivity analyses.Flow Hedging and Mutual Fund Performance
Abstract
This paper studies risk-taking behavior of active mutual funds with respect to flow risk and its consequences on fund performance. Recent evidence suggests that shocks to the common component of fund flows are a priced risk factor in expected stock returns. I find that nearly half of U.S. active equity funds tilt their portfolios toward stocks with higher exposure to common flows, suggesting that many funds do not hedge against flow risk. A rational model in which informed managers receive more precise private signals about common flows provides an explanation for this behavior. Using a holdings-based measure of flow risk management, I confirm the model’s main prediction that skilled funds have higher exposure to common flows: funds in the top decile of the measure outperform those in the bottom decile by 5% annually in the data. Overall, the paper identifies a new aspect of flow risk management among active equity funds.Foreign Institutional Ownership and Corporate Carbon Emissions
Abstract
We document that foreign institutions reduce the carbon emissions of their investee companies, while domestic institutions have no such effect. The results are driven by the active engagement. Specifically, firms with higher foreign institutional ownership have more proposals on environmental and social issues, and their executive compensation is more tightly linked to carbon emission levels. Furthermore, foreign institutional investors, who have higher climate change awareness, adopt the long-term strategy, and possess independent monitoring power, drive the negative effect of foreign institutional ownership on carbon emission levels. Such effect is more pronounced among firms with foreign sales and is weakened by corporate financial constraints. Using three exogenous shocks, we establish the causal relationship from foreign institutions to corporate carbon emissions.Fractional Homeownership and Its Impact on Life Cycle Portfolio Choice
Abstract
Using a quantitative life cycle model, we study the impact of access to fractional homeownership on individuals' optimal consumption, savings, and housing decisions. Fractional homeownership means that two parties (an individual and an institutional investor) share full ownership of a property. The individual lives in the property full-time and makes periodic rent payments to the institutional investor who sees the property solely as an investment vehicle. The amount of the rent payments depends on the value of the home and the fractional ownership structure that can be time-varying. We find that access to fractional homeownership is most attractive to particularly young and old individuals. Further, it leads to earlier housing market entry, later housing market exit, decreases individuals' loan-to-value ratios and reduces their moving activity at old age; all in comparison to a setting in which the individuals' rent-versus-own decisions are binary.Consumer Credit Without Collateral, Regulation, or Intermediaries
Abstract
We investigate how consumer credit unfolds in the absence of a financial system to intermediate, regulate, and secure loans, using novel data from an online informal credit market. The financial disintermediation angle views intermediaries as another layer of incentives and rent-seeking. Alternatively, intermediation is seen as value-creating, stemming from efficient resource allocation, or from alleviating financial frictions. We find borrowers display high rates of default and face high credit prices. A minority of sophisticated investors gains a disproportionately large and very profitable market share, leaving out unprofitable loans for unsophisticated investors. Additionally, lenders with more experience achieve better loan outcomes and provide more lenient loan terms. Loans are more likely to be funded when borrowers and lenders have similar online interests. These findings highlight the importance of experienced, well-established, and regulated intermediaries, and the role of lending relationships.Global Business Networks
Abstract
Applying large language models (GPT-3, T5-XXL) to (AI-generated) business descriptions of more than 80,000 firms, we construct time-varying business networks of economically linked firms across the globe. We run multiple evaluation tasks and find that our context-aware networks identify relevant competitors, suppliers, and customers with high accuracy. We further showcase the performance of our business networks with respect to identifying the lead-lag effect in international markets and predicting targets in M&A deals. Finally, we show that masking company-specific information in business descriptions can reduce a potential look-ahead bias introduced by the use of recently-trained language models.The Green Innovation Premium
Abstract
This paper introduces a novel firm-level green innovation measure utilizing ClimateBERT and GPT-3 language models, capturing a broader range of innovative activities than green patents and categorizing firms into inventors and adopters. Green innovating firms, including many from carbon-intensive sectors, experienced lower expected returns than their less innovative industry peers in both groups. These firms exhibit reduced carbon emissions and fewer climate incidents. They demonstrate a notable value increase in response to more stringent environmental regulations and recent heightened attention to green innovation. Climate policies effectively incentivize green innovation but predominantly among financially unconstrained companies within the green inventors.House Price Expectations and Consumer Spending
Abstract
House price expectations significantly influence households’ consumption decisions. Using experiencedprice growth (a weighted average of past price growth in local housing markets) as
the expectation measure, I find that a one-standard-deviation increase in house price expectations
leads to a 2% to 6% increase in real household spending. Results hold when using the experienced
price growth of geographically distant relatives as an instrument. I further document no
significant difference between the spending propensity of homeowners and renters exposed to
the same level of experienced price growth, thus distinguishing the expectations channel from
housing wealth and collateral channels.
Household Wealth and Local Labor Markets: Which Asset Classes Matter?
Abstract
Household wealth effects are likely to be heterogeneous between asset classes due to concentrated asset ownership between investor groups with plausibly different marginal propensities to consume. However, wealth effect estimates between asset classes across studies often cannot be directly compared. To allow for this comparison I construct a new data set on U.S. household asset and debt positions at the county-level and estimate wealth effects on local labor market outcomes simultaneously for majority of asset classes. This holistic setup also reveals the quantitative importance of my approach relative to a single asset case that may be prone to endogeneity. I find evidence of large (opposite signed) wealth effects from local house price shocks and mortgage rate shocks, and small positive effects from stock market wealth shocks on per capita payroll and employment, but no cleanly identified effects from bond market or deposit wealth shocks. House price and mortgage effects operate primarily via the construction sector while stock market effects also via the non-tradable sector. A model with heterogeneous agents motivates the empirical analysis.The Bright Side of Dark Markets: Experiments
Abstract
We design an experiment to study the effects of dark trading on incentives to acquire costly information, price efficiency, market liquidity, and investors’ earnings in a financial market. When the information precision is high, adding a dark pool alongside a lit exchange encourages information acquisition, crowds out liquidity from the lit market, and results in a non-linear relationship between price efficiency and dark pool participation. At modest levels, dark pools enhance information aggregation. Investors with stronger signals use the lit exchange relatively more, and uninformed traders are better off when they trade more in the dark pool.How Do Corporate Liquidity and Repurchase Policies Respond to Unionization at Major Customer Firms?
Abstract
We examine whether firms respond to labor unionization at major customer firms by changing their financial policies. We employ a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to identify the causal effects of customer unionization on a firm’s cash holdings and stock repurchases. We empirically test for two opposite, non-mutually-exclusive effects: shielding vs. specific investment. In the full sample, dependent suppliers respond to customer unionization by reducing their cash holdings by 3% of total assets (or 22% of the sample mean) and increasing stock repurchases by 0.5% of total assets (or 38% of the sample mean). These effects are even larger when the customer (1) is more important to the supplier, (2) has greater market power, (3) is located near the supplier, and (4) has had a shorter business relationship with the supplier. These effects generally reverse for suppliers with greater specific investment or longer relationship duration. Our findings suggest that overall, the shielding effect dominates: dependent suppliers reduce cash holdings and increase repurchases to shield the firm from rent-seeking by newly unionized customers. But for suppliers with greater specific investment or longer relationship with the customers, the specific investment effect dominates: suppliers increase their financial flexibility to incentivize the customer to preserve the customer’s relationship-specific investment.How Do PE Buyouts Affect Employee Pension Plans
Abstract
Using data from the Form 5500 filings, I analyze the impact of private equity (PE) buyouts on the defined benefit (DB) plans of target firms. I find that following a buyout, DB plans are more likely to be frozen or terminated. Regarding the actuarial assumption and the pension characteristics, I find an increase in the pension liability discount rate and decreases in the projected benefit obligations (PBO), pension assets (PA), and contributions, but I do not find significant effects on funding ratio. Additionally, I find that investment strategies for these plans become riskier, with a higher allocation to equities and lower allocations to cash, government securities, insurance accounts, and mutual funds. However, there is no significant effect on realized returns. Overall, these results suggest that private equity buyouts may negatively affect the retirement welfare of DB plan participants of target firms.Inflation and the Relative Price Premium
Abstract
This study shows that relative price dispersion impacts risk premia. Notably, firms associated with goods and services that have increased (decreased) in price relative to the headline inflation rate earn high (low) returns. We refer to this return spread of 0.88% per month as the relative price premium. We rationalize the premium via a consumption-based asset-pricing model that features imperfectly substitutable goods and an investor with preferences for the mix of goods consumed. As shocks to relative prices induce the investor to consume a suboptimal bundle of goods, high price dispersion signals bad times for the investor and the economy.The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from an Inflation-Driven Crisis of Trust
Abstract
Stakeholder trust is a major driver of corporate performance, but its benefits are difficult to identify empirically. This paper provides new evidence on the role of social capital on firm value employing a sudden increase in inflation as exogenous variation in stakeholder trust. Analyzing the cross-section of U.S. stock returns from 2018 through 2022, we find that in months following higher inflation rates, equity investors reward firms with stronger social capital, as proxied by their corporate social responsibility (CSR) levels. The result holds using different measures of inflation and CSR. The effect is stronger for firms headquartered in Democratic U.S. states (those most exposed to the “corporate greed” narrative of inflation) and ex-ante higher trust regions, as well as for firms with higher levels of customer awareness, customer sensitivity, and intangible capital. Analyst forecast revisions provide additional evidence that cash flow considerations drive the observed inflation-hedging property of CSR. Overall, the findings spotlight inflation as a crisis in stakeholder trust and provide new insights into the importance of social capital for firm value.Internal Carbon Markets
Abstract
I document the existence of a novel market for internal resource reallocation within firms, namely, internal carbon markets. Firms that are part of the European Union Emissions Trading System reallocate carbon allowances between subsidiaries. They reallocate more carbon allowances from subsidiaries with generous free allowances to those with modest free allowances allocated by the regulator. In response to a policy change that restricts the supply of free allowances, subsidiaries of firms with internal carbon markets emit more carbon. The increase in carbon emissions is consistent with an undervaluation of these allowances relative to the market when carbon allowances are transferred internally. Overall, the paper highlights a novel mechanism that can limit the effectiveness of market--based climate policies.Internalization of Environmental Externalities: The Role of Geographic Common Ownership
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of common ownership of geographically close firms on corporate environmental policies. Using the US EPA Toxic Release Inventory data from 1987 to 2019, I find that a within-firm variation in toxic chemical pollution is a function of the firm's facility proximity to other firms owned by the same institutional shareholders. Specifically, a focal firm's facility located near the headquarters of other firms sharing significant common institutional ownership tend to release fewer toxic chemicals, compared to other facilities under the same focal firm. Furthermore, I show that the effect of geographic common ownership on toxic pollution is causal using quasi-natural experiments of financial institution mergers. Shareholder voting analysis reveals that mutual funds with larger ownership stakes around a facility are more likely to vote in favor of shareholder-sponsored environmental proposals of the firm operating that facility. Collectively, these findings suggest that corporations internalize environmental externalities to geographically proximate cross-held peers.Interpretable Characteristics-based Factors: A Machine Learning Approach
Abstract
We propose a new approach to construct factors from firm characteristics. In contrast to existing studies, each of our factors comes from the same group of statistically related firm characteristics, making its economic interpretation straightforward. The number of groups is not chosen ad hocly, but rather determined by data. Applying our method to a set of 94 representative firm characteristics, we find that the factors chosen by our approach are not only easy to interpret economically, but the associated factor model outperforms existing models, in particular improving the recent Instrumented Principal Components Analysis (IPCA) model of Kelly, Pruitt and Su et al. (2019) and related recent machine learning models. Further Bayesian model comparison reaffirms the conclusion.Is Intangibles Talk Informative about Future Returns? Evidence from 10-K Filings
Abstract
We construct a measure of intangible intensity --- intangibles talk --- based on textual analysis of discussions on intangibles in a firm's 10-K filings. Intangibles talk covers the main three categories of intangible value in the literature: innovation assets and information technology, brand and customer relations, and human resources. Our measure is correlated with prior accounting measures of intangibles in our panel of firms. We analyze the relationship between intangible value and stock returns by examining the informativeness of our measure about future returns. Returns from long and short value-weighted portfolios based on high and low values of intangibles talk, respectively, outperform traditional book-to-market value strategy and its intangible augmented versions. Our strategy delivers its strongest performance from 2008 to 2020 with an average annual returns of 7.9%, in contrast to the poor performance of value strategies for the same period. Our strategy generates an average annual alpha of 3.26% from 1995 to 2020 in the four-factor (three Fama and French factors plus momentum) model. Our alphas are higher than those generated from portfolios sorted on other indicators of intangible intensity shown in the literature. Positive alphas are concentrated in stocks with higher arbitrage risk, proxied by idiosyncratic volatility, suggesting that investors misprice stocks with higher intangible intensity.Is Sustainable Finance a Dangerous Placebo?
Abstract
A first-order concern regarding sustainable finance is that it may crowd out individual support for more effective, policy-driven approaches to address societal challenges. We test the validity of this concern in a pre-registered experiment in the context of a real referendum on a climate law with a representative sample of the Swiss population (N=2,051). We find that the opportunity to invest in a climate-conscious fund does not erode individuals’ support for climate regulation. While sustainable finance resembles a placebo in the sense that participants seem to overestimate its impact, it is not a dangerous placebo that crowds out political engagement.Comovement and the Joint Cross-section of Stock and Corporate Bond Returns
Abstract
We study the pricing implications of firm-level stock–bond comovement in the joint cross-section of stock and corporate bond returns. We find that a trading strategy that longs (shorts) securities with low (high) changes in comovement delivers economically and statistically significant average monthly returns in both the stock and corporate bond markets. Such an effect is more pronounced for firms with low profitability and growth potential. The results are robust to different market conditions and risk characteristics and cannot be explained by established pricing factors from antecedent research. Comovement captures investors’ views about the firm’s overall risk and uncertainty prospects.Kinship Tightness and Financial Development
Abstract
Based on 1,265 pre-industrial ethnic communities globally, we investigate whether the interconnectedness of people in extended family structure (“kinship tightness”) determines financial development. First, tighter kinship is associated with lower trust people have in each other and in financial institutions and weaker property-rights and contract-enforcement institutions. Kinship tightness is also negatively related to country indicators of financial development, greater finance constraints by firms, and a lower access to credit by households. The negative effect is stronger for firms with greater external finance dependence and is mitigated by country-level trade openness. Overall, our evidence indicates that tight kinship impedes financial development.Limit Orders and Price Discovery: Evidence from Agricultural Futures Markets
Abstract
This paper examines the dynamics of limit orders and their contribution to price discovery in CME corn, soybean, and wheat futures markets from January 2019 to June 2020 using order-level data. We find that 25%-28% of limit orders submitted are executed, while around 75-79% are deleted and 7%-8% revised. Latency of limit orders is low, with half of the limit orders being deleted within 2-5 seconds after their placement. Most market messages represent limit orders that do not affect mid-quote returns contemporaneously, while the remaining messages are composed by aggressive trades and limit orders. The latter have major roles in corn, soybean, and wheat market price discovery, while non-aggressive trades and limit orders play a marginal role. We find an increased role of trades in price discovery while a decreased role of aggressive limit orders, following announcements. Our results suggest that most limit orders in grain futures markets continue to play the traditional role of uninformed liquidity provision, which challenges previous research results that point at limit orders far down the book being highly relevant for price discovery.Litigation Risk and Corporate ES Misconduct
Abstract
This article investigates how Environmental and Social (ES) litigation risk, measured by the political ideology of circuit judges, affects corporate ES misconduct. I find that firms significantly reduce ES misconduct when ES litigation risk is higher. To verify judge ideology as a valid proxy, I examine ES lawsuits and find liberal judges are more likely to support plaintiffs. Besides, reduced ES misconduct may be attributed to increased pressure from institutional investors. Furthermore, when facing heightened ES litigation risk, firms respond by holding more cash and making fewer M&As. Finally, I find negative stock price reactions around liberal judge appointments and less likelihood of payout in the following year, suggesting that shareholders pay when stakeholders gain. Taken together, this paper explores a novel and important determinant on corporate ES performance.Bank Credit and Firm Default Risk: An Implicit Contract Perspective
Abstract
In a model with non-relationship, risk-neutral lenders, credit spreads should move one-for-one with the default risk of firms. However, using credit registry data from Mexico, I show that within a bank-firm relationship such pass-through is close to zero, so that banks implicitly overcharge safe firms subsidizing credit conditions for riskier borrowers. Instead, when a firm switches bank, the pass-through is closer to one-for-one. Several preliminary tests suggest that this widespread phenomenon is more consistent with an insurance motive than with an evergreening motive, highlighted in the recent zombie lending literature.To rationalize my empirical findings, I build a model of long-term relationships between banks and firms in which endogenous borrowing frictions give rise to an insurance demand from firms: without insurance, riskier firms would pay overly high credit spreads and would be forced to downsize from the first-best level of capital. In the model, the cost for firms to switch lender allow banks to obtain some levels of commitment on informal state-contingent promises, and optimally deviate from the firm-specific implied credit spread. I characterize analytically the pass-through emerging from the optimal contract and show that, consistently with the data, the optimal contract prescribes limited pass-through from firm risk to credit conditions. I use my model to quantify the role of bank insurance for allocative efficiency and for the dampening of business cycle fluctuations, and to highlight the separate roles of insurance and evergreening.
The Long-term Interest Rate and Corporate Bond Credit Spreads
Abstract
I document a major shift in the comovement between the long-term interest rate and corporate bond credit spreads. Before the Great Financial Crisis, there was no apparent correlation between the 10-year Treasury yield and bond credit spreads. However, after the Financial Crisis, corporate bond credit spreads counterintuitively rose when the 10-year Treasury yield was low, particularly for lower credit ratings. Next, I demonstrate that this new comovement is closely linked to life insurers’ duration mismatch and bond holdings. After increases in the 10-year Treasury yield, the credit spreads on bonds with greater life insurance ownership decrease by more. This relationship was absent before the Financial Crisis when life insurers were hedged against interest rate risk but became pronounced afterward when life insurers faced severe duration mismatch. I then propose an intermediary asset pricing model to explain these findings. In this model, life insurers’ liabilities have a longer duration than their assets. As the long-term interest rate declines, insurers incur equity losses. Consequently, their effective risk aversion rises, leading to higher equilibrium credit spreads.Managing Regulatory Pressure: Bank Regulation and its Impact on Corporate Bond Intermediation
Abstract
We study how Basel regulations impact corporate bond intermediation in the cross-section ofdifferently regulated intermediaries. Using intra-quarter variation in the intensity of Basel requirements,
we document pronounced inventory contractions when regulatory pressure rises near
quarter ends. In contrast to their behavior in short-term money markets, U.S. bank dealers do
not absorb regulatory selling pressure in corporate bonds. Instead, bank dealers direct their
selling primarily to nonbank financial intermediaries at sizeable price concessions. In doing so,
they fall back on institutional investors to offload investment-grade bonds and nonbank dealers
to dispose of high-yield bonds. In the aggregate, Basel leverage regulation significantly impairs
liquidity conditions in the corporate bond market, specifically in balance sheet-intensive trades
in which regulatory shadow costs account for up to 20% of average transaction costs. Our findings
have implications for the design of future regulation of both bank and non-bank financial
intermediaries.
The Market for Sharing Interest Rate Risk
Abstract
We study the extent of interest rate risk sharing across the financial system using granular positions and transactions data in interest rate swaps. We show that pension and insurance (PF&I) sector emerges as a natural counterparty to banks and corporations: overall, and in response to decline in rates, PF&I buy duration, whereas banks and corporations sell duration. This cross-sector netting reduces the aggregate demand that is supplied by dealers. However, two factors impede cross-sector netting and add to substantial dealer imbalances across maturities: (i) PF&I, bank and corporations' demand is segmented across maturities, and (ii) hedge funds trade large volumes with time-varying exposure. We test the implications of demand imbalances on asset prices by calibrating a preferred-habitat investors model with risk-averse arbitrageurs, who face both funding cost shocks and demand side fluctuations. We find that demand imbalances play a bigger role than arbitrageurs’ funding cost in determining the equilibrium swap spreads at all maturities. In counterfactual analyses, we demonstrate how demand shocks, e.g., regulation leading banks to hedge more, affect the hedging behavior of PF&I. Our paper provides a quantity-based explanation for empirically observed asset prices in the interest rate derivatives market.Motivated Extrapolative Beliefs
Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between investors’ prior gains or losses and their adoption of extrapolative beliefs. Our findings indicate that investors facing prior losses tend to rely on optimistic extrapolative beliefs, whereas those experiencing prior gains adopt pessimistic extrapolative beliefs. These results support the theory of motivated beliefs. The interaction between the capital gain overhang and extrapolative beliefs results in significant mispricing, yielding monthly returns of approximately 1%. Motivated extrapolative beliefs comove with investors’ survey expectations and trading behavior. Additionally, households are susceptible to this belief distortion. Institutional investors can avoid overpriced stocks associated with (over-)optimistic motivated extrapolative beliefs.Negative Sentiment and Aggregate Retail Trading: Evidence from Mass Shootings
Abstract
I analyze the role of sentiment in aggregate retail investors’ trading activity. Using mass shootings in the U.S. as exogenous, non-economic, and negative shocks to investor sentiment, I find that retail investors on average net sell stocks of firms headquartered in the states where mass shootings took place in the previous week ("local' stocks). During the week after mass shootings, local stocks experience around 8% of the sample mean decrease in daily retail share volume order imbalance. Consistent with lower sentiment-driven trading, the retail net divestment from local stocks increases in the number of victims from mass shootings, and is more pronounced following unsolved shootings and shootings with teenage victims. However, such trading behavior does not seem to be rational, as local mass shootings have little impact on local firms' financial and operating performances, as well as local economic conditions. Finally, institutional investors do not react to mass shootings, which suggests that retail investors are more prone to sentiment.Neighbouring Assets
Abstract
Firms with similar characteristics display similar expected returns. Defining neighbouring assets as those with the most similar set of characteristics, I show that past returns of an asset’s neighbours predict its future expected returns. If a majority of an asset’s neighbours have performed poorly (well) in the past, it is likely that this asset also performs poorly (well) in the future. By classifying each asset into a decile portfolio based on the past performance of its neighbours, with 94 characteristics, a long-short portfolio generates an out-of-sample annualized Sharpe ratio of 1.15 with a monthly alpha of 2.72% (t = 8.86).Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Financial Constraints, Minimum Wage Policies, and Employment
Abstract
This article shows that firms’ balance sheets play a crucial role in explaining the relationship between minimum wage policies and employment dynamics. Using a border discontinuity approach and establishment-level information on firms in the United States, we show that changes in the minimum wage do not affect employment. However, this average effect masks important corporate-level heterogeneity. The effect of changes in minimum wage policies on employment is indeed negative and meaningful for establishments that belong to financially constrained firms. We provide causal evidence about this relationship using the change in the federal minimum wage during the 2007-2008 financial crisis and an exogenous measure of financial frictions based on ex-ante heterogeneity in the long-term debt structure as a unique laboratory.Outside Employment Opportunities and Tournament Incentives
Abstract
We present robust evidence that firms enlarge the executive pay gap when executive mobility is constrained by the enhanced enforceability of non-compete agreements. We interpret this finding as evidence that firms increase tournament incentives to keep executives incentivized after the loss of valuable outside employment options. Consistent with this argument, we observe more significant increases in pay gaps for executives with greater ex ante mobility options and in years close to CEO-dismissal events in which tournament-incentive mechanisms are more prevalent. Following restrictions to executive mobility, equity portfolios that long (short) firms that (do not) boost the executive pay gap generate positive alphas. We rule out CEO power, managerial talent differentials, and CEO bargaining power as alternative explanations driving our results. Our findings suggest that there is a substitution effect between external (outside employment opportunities) and internal (pay gap) tournament incentives, hence provide novel evidence on a new executive pay gap determinant.Personal Experience Effects across Markets: Evidence from NFT and Cryptocurrency Investing
Abstract
I examine how personal experience causally impacts individual investment behaviors using a plausibly random setting in the emerging non-fungible token (NFT) market. Using blockchain transaction-level data for over 1 million wallets, I find that NFT investors who randomly receive more valuable NFTs in the primary market are more likely to participate in subsequent primary market sales and trade more NFTs in the secondary market. These experience effects significantly spill over to a different asset market as investors also trade more cryptocurrencies. The effects vary with wallet size and prior levels of experience.The Political Origin of Credit Cycle
Abstract
We empirically demonstrates a relationship between declining U.S. presidential approval ratings and a greater propensity for the implementation of expansionary housing credit policies by the government. A theoretical model is proposed to contextualize these observations, suggesting that governments, in the face of dominant information frictions within financial markets, may respond by altering fiscal credit policies to counterbalance the effects of decreased popularity. Conversely, when entry barriers constitute the main financial impediment in an economy, governments favor traditional fiscal policies. The predictions from the model are empirically tested via a cross-country panel analysis. The resulting regression analysis indicates that for developed nations, decreased government popularity tends to be followed by an increase in the credit-to-GDP ratio. However, this correlation is absent in terms of government spending. Notably, the pattern for emerging countries is inversed; while government popularity can forecast government spending, it does not provide insights into forthcoming shifts in credit.The Power of Reserve Tiering: Financial Institution Heterogeneity and Monetary Policy Pass-through
Abstract
This paper studies how reserve tiering, which involves remunerating different reserve tiers at different rates, can promote monetary policy pass-through to the loan market. The data shows a sharp increase in low-interest-rate loans and a decline in medium-interest-rate loans in Japan following the reserve tiering policy. Using a heterogeneous agent model to connect interbank and loan markets, I show that financial institutions’ heterogeneous interest rate exposures to the tiered system can explain the changes. Higher-risk banks borrow more under higher tiering rates from non-depository institutions (NDIs) and get additional cheaper funding through inter- bank trading to cut loan rates. At the same time, banks’ profit function shifts, and the optimal loan rate for banks decreases. Further, I show that reserve tiering brings risks to the financial system since banks with higher risk exposure cut loan rates more. The paper suggests that to cool down the overheating economy, the central bank can implement reserve tiering with ascending interest rates by remunerating the reserve above a threshold at a higher interest rate instead. Reserve tiering with ascending interest rates is more effective, less costly, and can stabilize the financial system’s health compared with alternative monetary policies.A Preferred-Habitat Model with a Corporate Sector
Abstract
I study a preferred-habitat model of the term structure in which the same marginal investor prices government and corporate bonds. The model endogenously generates variation in credit spreads over and above changes in credit quality. In equilibrium, credit spreads are affine functions of the aggregate risk factors, providing an equilibrium justification to credit risk valuation models. Risk premia on interest rate and credit risk are time-varying and jointly determined. Arbitrage activity strengthens the risk-neutral dependence between the aggregate risk factors beyond the observed correlation between default rates and the policy rate. Movements in credit spreads are driven by (i) variation in credit quality (ii) risk-neutral correlation of the risk factors, and (iii) portfolio rebalancing due to diversification motives. A calibrated model matches the level and the slope of the term structure of credit spreads for both investment-grade and high-yield issuers. As government bonds hedge against default risk, the strength of monetary policy transmission to corporate (Treasury) yields is weaker (stronger) when default uncertainty increases. Shocks to the short term rate move credit spreads by altering risk premia on both credit and interest rate risk. The impact of quantitative easing interventions is asymmetric and depends on the specific assets being purchased.Private Activity Bonds as Investment Subsidy: Evidence from the 1986 Cap on Bond Volumes
Abstract
I examine firms' investment response to the supply of private activity bonds (PABs) – a subsidy tool granting corporate beneficiaries access to the tax-exempt municipal bond market. I leverage the variation in PAB supply limits across states introduced by the 1986 Tax Reform. By documenting a significant positive investment response, I show that higher PAB supply stimulates firm investment. Although PABs subsidize capital over labor, my findings do not support input factor substitution, as I find a positive effect on employment. I exploit the random outcome of a lottery-based PAB distribution mechanism to demonstrate that states' project selection does not drive the results.Labor Supply and Firm Capital Structure
Abstract
We exploit the setting of China’s land titling program that released labor from farm activities as a quasi-natural experiment to examine how private and publicly traded firms respond to an abrupt increase in labor supply. We find that, while private firms reduce their leverage after the reform, public firms increase theirs. The difference between public and private firms is driven by the interplay between labor market frictions and financial flexibility in capital structure decisions. The entitlement of property rights stimulates labor supply, reducing labor costs and alleviating labor market friction. This, in turn, can reduce firms’ indirect costs of financial distress and increase their leverage. However, firms also choose to lower their leverage to maintain financial flexibility and attract workers in the local labor market. The former effect is more pronounced in public firms, while the latter effect is more prominent in private firms.The Role of Underwriters in the Green Bond Market
Abstract
This paper explores the role of underwriters in the green bond market and studies how past relationships with underwriters can impact the environmental performance of companies. I find that companies that partnered with major green bond underwriters tend to increase emissions after green bond issuance. In contrast, companies that issued green bonds without having a prior green bond underwriter relationship demonstrate a significant reduction in carbon emissions in the long term. I further investigate the casual effect of green bond issuance on carbon emissions utilizing firms' prior relationships with major green bond underwriters as an instrument for green bond issuance. I find that companies maintain the same level of emissions for two and more years following green bond issuance. Taken together, my results suggest that green bonds serve primarily as a commitment device for companies that genuinely seek the opportunity to issue a green instrument, whereas for companies with established green underwriter partnerships, it can be a greenwashing opportunity.Small Banks and the Recovery Advantage in Commercial Real Estate
Abstract
Small banks play a large role in commercial real estate (CRE) lending. In this paper, I show that small banks with a CRE lending focus achieve higher loan recovery rates than other banks through sales of foreclosed properties. I argue that this advantage in handling distressed assets leads to a competitive edge for loans with high default probability. I back this claim by showing that small banks originate a large share of hotel and construction loans, with historically high default rates, and a relatively low share of apartment loans, which are broadly considered safer. Furthermore, among banks with a CRE lending focus, small banks experience higher early delinquency rates than their larger peers. However, this pattern reverses when considering loans in later stages of delinquency and charge-off rates, suggesting that small banks are able to prevent loan defaults from becoming permanent. With this paper, I contribute to the literature on the role of small banks by providing compelling evidence for their relative advantage in CRE, an asset class in which they play an outsized role.Reference Price Updating in the Housing Market
Abstract
What reference price do home sellers use when deciding on listing prices? This paper revisits this question using a model of seller listing behavior and a novel dataset that traces the transaction, refinancing, and listing history of over 97,000 U.S. residential properties. The structural model includes reference points, financial constraints, sale and mortgage default decisions, and matches key data moments. I find that sellers exhibit 2.5 higher degree of loss aversion to an observed "historical peak", measured by the appraised price of a refinance mortgage, compared to the original purchase price in a housing boom period. Model decomposition shows that using the historical peak as a reference price helps explain the observed listing premium and the correlation between aggregate house prices and volume to a greater extent, relative to the original purchase price. Collectively, these findings suggest that the historical peak during sellers' homeownership period serves as an updated and salient reference point influencing their pricing strategy, which, in turn, explains the aggregate dynamics of the housing market.Regulatory Model Secrecy and Bank Reporting Discretion
Abstract
This paper studies how banking regulators should disclose the regulatory models they use to assess banks that have reporting discretion. In my setting, such assessments depend on both economic conditions and the fundamentals of banks' assets. The regulatory models provide signals about economic conditions, while banks report information about their asset fundamentals. On the one hand, disclosing the models helps banks understand how their assets perform in different economic environments. On the other hand, it induces banks with socially undesirable assets to manipulate reports in order to obtain favorable assessments. While regulators can partially deter manipulation by designing the assessment rule optimally, the disclosure decision of the regulatory models remains necessary. The optimal disclosure policy is to disclose the regulatory models when the assessment rule is more likely to induce manipulation and keep them secret otherwise. In this way, disclosure complements the assessment rule by reducing manipulation when it harms the regulators more. These analyses speak directly to supervisory stress tests and climate risk stress tests.Reinvesting Dividends
Abstract
It is a long-standing fact that retail investors largely consume dividends with previous studies estimating consumption rates of up to 75%. Using six different datasets, we show that dividend consumption rates have decreased substantially over time to less than 20%, today. Instead of consumption, we find reinvestments into securities portfolios of up to 80%. We provide evidence that this time trend is driven by the transition from checks to direct deposits for the payout of dividends. While it was easy and tempting to spend dividend checks in the past, today’s dividends sit in brokerage cash positions, waiting to be reinvested.Some Bonuses are Bigger than Others? Benchmark-beating Pressure and The Gender Pay Gap
Abstract
I attempt to measure the gender-specific effect of financial pressure on compensation. For identification, I examine the relation between the gender pay gap and managers’ pressure to meet earnings expectations. Using a 2017 UK pay transparency mandate, I find that the gender difference in bonus pay increases by 4.2% in firms that meet or just beat analyst forecasts compared to firms that miss or comfortably beat analyst expectations, even after controlling for positions. I further explore whether this phenomenon is associated with certain corporate culture. Cross-sectional tests show that this pressure-induced gap in bonus pay is only found among companies characterized by limited workplace flexibility, low Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores, and a board with fewer than three female directors.Spatial Extrapolation in The Housing Market
Abstract
Individuals form economic expectations for a given region by extrapolating from the economic outcomes of another geographic area, a phenomenon we term 'spatial extrapolation.' We exploit the scenario when Out-of-town (OOT) buyers purchase property in places different from their previous residences. Analyzing roughly 3 million U.S. housing transactions by OOT homebuyers from 2002 to 2017, we find that a 50% increase in the past five-year hometown house prices induces OOT buyers to pay an additional 2% for new OOT properties. We implement two identification strategies to rule out the wealth effect and other channels. First, we compare the purchase price differences among renters, migrants, and second-home (SH) buyers. Second, we construct a belief sensitivity instrumental variable (IV) by combining house price belief and housing transaction data. The IV provides exogenous variation in extrapolative house price belief across locations that is orthogonal to wealth changes. Our research pioneers the exploration of spatial extrapolation and sheds light on the intricate interplay between homebuyer beliefs and behaviors, emphasizing the profound influence of extrapolative belief on local housing market dynamics.Spouses in The Same Boat: Labor Income Risk and Intra-household Risk Sharing
Abstract
This paper proposes a novel channel for households' choices of risky asset allocation: more intra-household risk sharing reduces labor income risk for dual-earner couples, thus encouraging households' financial risk-taking. Capturing intra-household risk sharing by conditional income correlation between spouses' industries, I find that more income risk sharing within couples increases households' financial risk-taking. Using unexpected events of spousal death, I causally identify the impact of intra-household risk sharing on households' portfolio choices. My study implies an unintended consequence of positive assortative mating for wealth inequality by discouraging disadvantaged households' financial risk-taking.Startup Catering to Venture Capitalists
Abstract
I show that information frictions in valuation can lead startups to select projects that align with the expertise of potential venture capital (VC) investors, a strategy I refer to as catering. First, I build a theoretical model where a startup trades off project quality with the informational benefits of catering. The startup selects catering when alternative information sources are limited or VC investors demonstrate proficiency in valuing projects close to their expertise. Second, using textual data from patent applications, I define catering projects as patent applications that deviate from the founders' experience toward VC's expertise. Consistent with model predictions, catering applications are more prevalent when patent examination is slow or VCs utilize past data to screen new deals. Catering applications are 19.3% less likely to get patent approval, suggesting low project quality. Overall, this paper shows that specialized financial intermediaries, such as VC, can broadly shape new technology developed by firms outside their portfolios.Strategic Bargaining and Portfolio Choice in Intermediated Markets
Abstract
Many assets are traded in decentralized markets intermediated by dealers. In these markets, search frictions lead to trading illiquidity. Moreover, terms of trade are negotiated between investors and dealers pursuant to strategic bargaining. Investors’ intrinsic types affect both their outside options and their bargaining powers. This paper proposes a search-based theory with strategic bargaining to study investors’ dynamic portfolio choice and equilibrium asset prices in intermediated markets. The model rationalizes well-documented empirical patterns, and generates additional predictions novel to the literature. A key prediction is that the relationship between asset prices and liquidity is non-monotonic. In the cross-section, the price-liquidity relationship is positive for sufficiently liquid assets but negative for highly illiquid assets. The average price-liquidity relation turns negative during severe crises. The model also predicts that transaction costs are higher for investor-sell trades than for investor-buy trades. The model predictions are supported by empirical evidence using corporate bond data.Talk or Walk the Talk? The Real Impact of ESG Investing
Abstract
I propose a model to study how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investors influence firms' ESG-related investments and disclosures. Paradoxically, when the firm manager can easily manipulate ESG disclosures, stronger investor ESG preference can decrease green investment: though investors attach a higher value to green outcomes, more greenwashing is induced, making ESG disclosures less reliable. Investors therefore give less reward to firms that claim to be green. Moreover, firms with poor business performance are particularly likely to greenwash and reap benefits from investors. My analysis raises concerns that the rise of ESG investing may have unintended consequences, especially when ESG-disclosure regulations are weak.Textual Changes in 10-Ks and Stock Price Crash Risk: Evidence from Neural Network Embeddings
Abstract
Previous research attributes stock price crash risk to managerial bad news hoarding. Contrary to this notion, we find evidence that stock price crash risk is determined by investor inattention to textual changes in corporate disclosures. Using a large sample of 10-K filings, we estimate neural network embeddings to quantify the degree of textual changes in successive 10-Ks. We find that changes in 10-Ks have a positive and economically meaningful impact on one-year-ahead stock price crash risks. Our results suggest that investor inattention to textual changes in 10-Ks can have broader capital market consequences than previously documented.To the Moon or Bust: Do Retail Investors Profit From Social Media-Induced Trading?
Abstract
This paper provides evidence that social media exacerbates behavioral biases, induces retail trading more than other known traditional attention-grabbing factors, and is detrimental to investor performance. We document that retail investors underperform at both the transaction and portfolio levels from trades placed on days when a stock has abnormally high levels of discussion on social media. Additionally, we investigate the performance of social media investors in other asset classes, such as cryptocurrency, foreign exchange, and commodities, and find that they underperform across all asset classes. These findings are crucial in the context of heightened regulatory scrutiny of retail trading and the ongoing discourse on the role and impact of social media in financial markets.JEL Classifications
- G0 - General