The availability of credit varies over the business cycle through shifts in the leverage of financial intermediaries. Empirically, we find that intermediary leverage is negatively aligned with the banks' Value-at-Risk (VaR). Motivated by the evidence, we explore a contracting model that captures the observed features. Under general conditions on the outcome distribution given by extreme value t…
We develop a novel methodology to infer the amount of capital allocated to quantitative equity arbitrage strategies. Using this methodology, which exploits time-variation in the cross-section of short interest, we document that the amount of capital devoted to value and momentum strategies has grown significantly since the late 1980s. We provide evidence that this increase in capital has result…
We investigate the effect of ambiguity about hedge fund investment strategies on asset prices and aggregate welfare. We model some traders (mutual funds) as facing ambiguity about the equilibrium trading strategies of other traders (hedge funds). This ambiguity limits the ability of mutual funds to infer information from prices and has negative effects on market outcomes. We use this analysis t…
We argue and demonstrate that resource allocation within firms' internal capital markets provides an important force countervailing financial market dislocation. We estimate a structural model of internal capital markets to separately identify and quantify the forces driving the reallocation decision and illustrate how these forces interact with external capital market stress. The weaker (stron…
We argue that internal capital market imperatives of business groups i.e., reallocation of capital across group firms, influences an affiliated firm's dividend policy. Intuition is developed in a model in which business group insiders distribute dividends from cash-rich firms and use their share of payout to invest in other affiliated firms. Employing multi-country panel-data, we find support f…
Both risk management and payout decisions affect a firm's financial flexibility—the ability to avoid costly financial distress as well as underinvestment. We provide evidence of substitution between hedging and payout decisions using samples of both financial and nonfinancial firms. We find that a more flexible distribution, favoring repurchases over dividends, is negatively related to financ…
We study whether investors can exploit serial dependence in stock returns to improve out-of-sample portfolio performance. We show that a vector-autoregressive (VAR) model captures stock return serial dependence in a statistically significant manner. Analytically, we demonstrate that, unlike contrarian and momentum portfolios, an arbitrage portfolio based on the VAR model attains positive expect…
We explore dynamics of limited attention in the $35 billion market for checking overdrafts, using survey content as shocks to the salience of overdraft fees. Conditional on selection into surveys, individuals who face overdraft-related questions are less likely to incur a fee in the survey month. Taking multiple overdraft surveys builds a "stock" of attention that reduces overdrafts for up to t…
The recent financial crisis has shown that short-term collateralized borrowing may be a highly unstable source of funds in times of stress. In this paper, we develop a dynamic equilibrium model and analyze under what conditions such instability can be a consequence of market-wide changes in expectations. We derive a liquidity constraint and a collateral constraint that determine whether such ex…
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kondisi-kondisi yang mengindikasikan terjadinya Ponzi scheme dan affinity fraud pada bisnis biro perjalanan umrah PT First Anugerah Karya (First Travel) dan mengetahui faktor-faktor signifikan yang mempengaruhi jemaah First Travel menjadi korban fraud. Penelitian ini merupakan metode campuran dengan menggunakan data primer dan sekunder. Data primer yang…
At year-end, some allege that institutional investors try to mislead investors by placing trades that inflate performance (portfolio pumping) or distort reported holdings (window dressing). We contribute direct tests using daily institutional trades and find that year-end price inflation derives from a lack of institutional selling rather than institutional buying. In fact, institutional buying…
We analyze the role of "directors from related industries" (DRIs) on a firm's board. DRIs are officers and/or directors of companies in the upstream/downstream industries of the firm. DRIs are more likely when the information gap vis-à-vis related industries is more severe or the firm has greater market power. DRIs have a significant impact on firm value/performance, especially when informatio…
Time constraints, managerial power, and reputational concerns can impede board communication. This paper develops a model where board decisions depend on directors' effort in communicating their information to others. I show that directors communicate more effectively when pressure for conformity is stronger—that is, when directors are more reluctant to disagree with each other. Hence, open b…
We find that the stock market underreacts to stock-level liquidity shocks: liquidity shocks are not only positively associated with contemporaneous returns, but they also predict future return continuations for up to six months. Long-short portfolios sorted on liquidity shocks generate significant returns of 0.70% to 1.20% per month that are robust across alternative shock measures and after co…
Can concern with relative standing, which has been shown to influence consumption and labor supply, also increase borrowing and the likelihood of financial distress? We find that perceived peer income contributes to debt and the likelihood of financial distress among those who consider themselves poorer than their peers. We use unique responses describing perceived peer characteristics from a D…
Social media has become a popular venue for individuals to share the results of their own analysis on financial securities. This paper investigates the extent to which investor opinions transmitted through social media predict future stock returns and earnings surprises. We conduct textual analysis of articles published on one of the most popular social media platforms for investors in the Unit…
We study the trading behavior of investors in an entire stock market. Using an account level dataset of all trades on the Istanbul Stock Exchange in 2005, we identify investors with similar trading behavior as linked in an empirical investor network (EIN). Consistent with the theory of information networks, we find that central investors earn higher returns and trade earlier than peripheral inv…
Why do security analysts issue overly positive recommendations? We propose a novel approach to distinguish strategic motives (e.g., generating small-investor purchases and pleasing management) from nonstrategic motives (genuine overoptimism). We argue that nonstrategic distorters tend to issue both positive recommendations and optimistic forecasts, while strategic distorters "speak in two tongu…
Using a strategic rational expectations equilibrium framework, we show that forcing a well-informed insider to disclose her trades in advance tends to increase welfare for both the insider and less-informed outsiders. Advance disclosure generates price risk for the insider, and to mitigate this risk, the insider trades less aggressively on her private information. Consequently, outsiders face l…
Contrary to earlier studies, we find that prior client performance is a significant determinant of the likelihood that an investment bank will be chosen as the advisor by future acquirers and of the changes through time in banks' shares of the advisory business. Further, the changes in the market values of acquirers at the announcement of acquisition attempts are positively correlated with cont…