New: Value and Momentum Everywhere
Date Posted: Nov 14, 2012
We study the returns to value and momentum strategies jointly across eight diverse markets and asset classes. Finding consistent value and momentum premia in every asset class, we further find strong common factor structure among their returns. Value and momentum are more positively correlated across asset classes than passive exposures to the asset classes themselves. However, value and momentum are negatively correlated both within and across asset classes. Our results indicate the presence of
REVISION: The Effects of Stock Lending on Security Prices: An Experiment
Date Posted: Nov 12, 2012
We examine the impact of short selling by conducting a randomized stock lending experiment. Working with a large, anonymous money manager, we create an exogenous and sizeable shock to the supply of lendable shares by taking high-loan fee stocks in the manager’s portfolio and randomly making available and withholding stocks from the lending market. The experiment ran in two independent phases: the first, from September 5 to 18, 2008, with over $580 million of securities lent; and the second, fr
New: Time Series Momentum
Date Posted: Jun 23, 2012
We document significant “time series momentum” in equity index, currency, commodity, and bond futures for each of the 58 liquid instruments we consider. We find persistence in returns for 1 to 12 months that partially reverses over longer horizons, consistent with sentiment theories of initial under-reaction and delayed over-reaction. A diversified portfolio of time series momentum strategies across all asset classes delivers substantial abnormal returns with little exposure to standard asse
New: The Role of Shorting, Firm Size, and Time on Market Anomalies
Date Posted: Jun 23, 2012
We examine the role of shorting, firm size, and time on the profitability of size, value, and momentum strategies. We find that long positions comprise almost all of size, 60% of value, and half of momentum profits. Shorting becomes less important for momentum and more important for value as firm size decreases. The value premium decreases with firm size and is weak among the largest stocks. Momentum profits, however, exhibit no reliable relation with size. These effects are robust over 86 years
New: How Tax Efficient are Equity Styles?
Date Posted: Jun 23, 2012
We examine the after-tax performance, tax exposure, and tax efficiency of size, value, growth, and momentum equity styles. On an after-tax basis, value and momentum outperform, and growth underperforms, the market. Decomposing the tax exposure of each style, we find that turnover is a misleading indicator of tax efficiency. Momentum, despite having more than five times the turnover of value, has the same tax rate as value, because momentum generates substantial short-term losses while value has
New: Value and Momentum Everywhere
Date Posted: Mar 20, 2009
Value and momentum ubiquitously generate abnormal returns for individual stocks within several countries, across country equity indices, government bonds, currencies, and commodities. We study jointly the global returns to value and momentum and explore their common factor structure. We find that value (momentum) in one asset class is positively correlated with value (momentum) in other asset classes, and value and momentum are negatively correlated within and across asset classes. Liquidity ris
The Geography Of Investment: Informed Trading And Asset Prices
Date Posted: Jan 15, 2009
This paper uses geography to shed light on the role of asymmetric information in asset pricing. Demonstrating that investors possess significant informational advantages in evaluating nearby investments, we find that active mutual fund managers overweight proximate firms in their portfolios and earn substantial abnormal returns in local holdings. These findings are more pronounced among funds which are small, have few holdings, and operate out of remote locations. Aggregating across all funds
The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices
Date Posted: Jan 15, 2009
Applying a geographic lens to mutual fund performance, this study finds that fund managers earn substantial abnormal returns in nearby investments. These returns are particularly strong among funds that are small and old, focus on few holdings, and operate out of remote areas. Furthermore, we find that while the average fund exhibits only a modest bias toward local stocks, certain funds strongly bias their holdings locally and exhibit even greater local performance. Finally, we demonstrate that
New: Long-Run Stockholder Consumption Risk and Asset Returns
Date Posted: Feb 01, 2008
We provide new evidence on the success of long-run risks in asset pricing by focusing on the risks borne by stockholders. Exploiting micro-level household consumption data, we show that long-run stockholder consumption risk better captures cross-sectional variation in average asset returns than aggregate or non-stockholder consumption risk, and provides more plausible economic magnitudes. We find that risk aversion estimates around 10 can match observed risk premia for the wealthiest stockholder
New: The Political Economy of Financial Regulation: Evidence from U.S. State Usury Laws in the 19th Centu...
Date Posted: Jun 05, 2007
We investigate the causes and consequences of financial regulation by studying the political economy of U.S. state usury laws in the 19th century. We find evidence that usury laws were binding and enforced and that lending activity was affected by rate ceilings. Exploiting the heterogeneity across states and time in regulation, enforcement, and market conditions, we find that regulation tightens when it is less costly and when it coexists with other economic and political restrictions that exclu
Why Do Entrepreneurs Hold Large Ownership Shares? Testing Agency Theory Using Entrepreneur Effort an...
Date Posted: Jan 20, 2006
We augment the standard principal-agent model to accommodate an entrepreneurial setting, where effort, ownership, and firm size are determined endogenously. We test the model's predictions (some novel) using new data on entrepreneurial effort and wealth. Accounting for unobserved firm heterogeneity using instrumental variables, we find entrepreneurial ownership shares increase with outside wealth, decrease with firm risk, and decrease with firm size; effort increases with ownership and size; and
Bank Mergers and Crime: The Real and Social Effects of Credit Market Competition
Date Posted: Feb 22, 2005
Using a unique sample of commercial loans and mergers between large banks, we provide microlevel (within-county) evidence linking credit conditions to economic development and find a spillover effect on crime. Neighborhoods that experienced more bank mergers are subjected to higher interest rates, diminished local construction, lower prices, an influx of poorer households, and higher property crime in subsequent years. The elasticity of property crime with respect to merger-induced banking conce
Do Liquidation Values Affect Financial Contracts? Evidence from Commercial Loan Contracts and Zoning...
Date Posted: Jan 20, 2005
We examine the impact of asset liquidation value on debt contracting using a unique set of commercial property non-recourse loan contracts. We employ commercial zoning regulation to capture the flexibility of a property's permitted uses as a measure of an asset's redeployability or value in its next best use. Within a census tract, more redeployable assets receive larger loans with longer maturities and durations, lower interest rates, and fewer creditors, controlling for the current value of th
More Banks, Less Crime? The Real and Social Effects of Bank Competition
Date Posted: Jan 13, 2005
We examine the link between the competitiveness of the local banking market, urban development, and crime. We provide micro-level evidence that neighborhoods that experienced more bank mergers are subjected to future reduced loan provision, diminished local construction, lower prices and rents, an influx of poorer households, and higher crime in subsequent years. A one standard deviation increase in bank concentration raises homicide and burglary rates by approximately 1 percent. We show that th
Informal Financial Networks: Theory and Evidence
Date Posted: Oct 27, 2004
We develop a model of informal financial networks and present corroborating evidence by studying the role of professional property brokers in the U.S. commercial real estate market. Our model demonstrates how service intermediaries, who do not supply finance themselves, can facilitate their clients' access to finance via repeated informal relationships with lenders. Empirically, we find that, controlling for endogenous broker selection, hiring a broker strikingly increases the probability of obt
Market Frictions, Price Delay, and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns
Date Posted: May 27, 2003
We parsimoniously characterize the severity of market frictions affecting a stock using the delay with which its share price responds to information. The most severely delayed firms command a large return premium that captures the size effect and half the value premium. Moreover, idiosyncratic risk is priced only among the most delayed firms. These results are not explained by other sources of return premia, microstructure, or pure liquidity effects, but appear most consistent with investor re
The Returns to Entrepreneurial Investment: A Private Equity Premium Puzzle?
Date Posted: Apr 11, 2002
We document the return to investing in U.S. nonpublicly traded equity. Entrepreneurial investment is extremely concentrated, yet despite its poor diversification, we find that the returns to private equity are no higher than the returns to public equity. Given the large public equity premium, it is puzzling why households willingly invest substantial amounts in a single privately held firm with a seemingly far worse risk-return tradeoff. We briefly discuss how large nonpecuniary benefits, a pref
Confronting Information Asymmetries: Evidence from Real Estate Markets
Date Posted: Apr 04, 2002
This paper studies the role of asymmetric information in commercial real estate markets in the U.S. We propose a novel and exogenous measure of information based on the quality of property tax assessments in different regions. Employing direct and indirect information variables, we find strong evidence that information considerations are significant in this market. We show that market participants resolve information asymmetries by purchasing nearby properties, trading properties with long incom
Confronting Information Asymmetries: Evidence from Real Estate Markets
Date Posted: Apr 04, 2002
This paper studies the role of asymmetric information in commercial real estate markets in the U.S. and Canada. We propose a novel and exogenous measure of information based on the quality of property tax assessments in different regions and time periods. Employing direct and indirect information variables, we find strong evidence that information considerations are significant in real estate. We show that market participants resolve information asymmetries by purchasing nearby properties and
What Do We Really Know About the Cross-Sectional Relation Between Past and Expected Returns?
Date Posted: Feb 19, 2002
Multihorizon temporal relationships between stock returns are complex due to confounding sources of return premia, microstructure effects, and changes in the relationship over various horizons. We find the relation to be further complicated by the sign and consistency of the past return that also varies, somewhat sensibly, with the season and the tax environment. Accounting for these additional effects using a parsimonious technical trading rule generates surprisingly large abnormal returns, des
What Do We Really Know About the Cross-Sectional Relation
Between Past and Expected Returns?
Date Posted: Feb 01, 2002
Multihorizon temporal relationships between stock returns are complex due to confounding sources of return premia, microstructure effects, and changes in the relationship over various horizons. We find the relation to be further complicated by the sign and consistency of the past return that also varies, somewhat sensibly, with the season and the tax environment. Accounting for these additional effects using a parsimonious technical trading rule generates surprisingly large abnormal returns, de
The Private Equity Premium Puzzle
Date Posted: Sep 21, 2001
We document that investment in private equity is extremely concentrated. Yet despite the very poor diversification of entrepreneurs' portfolios, we find that the returns to private equity are surprisingly low. Given the large premium required by investors in public equity, it is puzzling why households willingly invest substantial amounts in a single privately held firm with a far worse risk-return tradeoff. We examine various explanations and conclude that private nonpecuniary benefits of contr
The Cross Section Of Expected Returns And Its Relation To Past Returns: New Evidence
Date Posted: Mar 06, 2001
This paper parsimoniously characterizes how past returns affect the cross-section of expected returns. Using Fama-MacBeth regressions, it shows that the momentum and reversals associated with past returns over various horizons are strongly affected by a turn-of-the-year seasonal that differs for winners and losers, depending on both the tax environment and the month of the year, and differs by exchange listing. The analysis also uncovers a consistent winners effect - high fractions of positive
Brokerage, Intermediation, and Agency: The Financing and Pricing of Commercial Properties
Date Posted: Jul 28, 2000
This paper examines a novel form of financial intermediation by studying the role of professional property brokers in the commercial real estate market. We find that broker intermediation is an important feature of the financing of commercial properties. Controlling for endogenous broker selection, we determine that hiring a broker significantly increases the probability of obtaining a bank loan by a striking 18 percent. We find, however, that brokers have only a modest effect on the sale price.
An Analysis of Risk and Pricing Anomalies
Date Posted: Jul 23, 2000
This paper examines the link between several well-known asset pricing anomalies and covariance risk. Estimating the time-series of the covariance matrix of asset returns via a multivariate GARCH model, I quantify the contribution made by each anomaly to the covariance matrix of asset returns, as well as its ability to forecast future covariances. I find that anomalous returns associated with firm size are closely linked to the covariance matrix, while those associated with book-to-market equit