Personal Communication in an Automated World: Evidence from Loan Repayments
Version of Record online: 11/28/2024 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13388
CHRISTINE LAUDENBACH, STEPHAN SIEGEL
We examine the effect of personal, two‐way communication on the payment behavior of delinquent borrowers. Borrowers who speak with a randomly assigned bank agent are significantly more likely to successfully resolve the delinquency relative to borrowers who do not speak with a bank agent. Call characteristics related to the human touch of the call, such as the likeability of the agent's voice, significantly affect payment behavior. Borrowers who speak with a bank agent are also significantly less likely to become delinquent again. Our findings highlight the value of a human element in interactions between financial institutions and their customers.
Private Equity and Financial Stability: Evidence from Failed‐Bank Resolution in the Crisis
Version of Record online: 11/27/2024 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13399
EMILY JOHNSTON‐ROSS, SONG MA, MANJU PURI
This paper investigates the role of private equity (PE) in failed‐bank resolutions after the 2008 financial crisis, using proprietary Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation failed‐bank acquisition data. PE investors made substantial investments in underperforming and riskier failed banks, particularly in geographies where local banks were also distressed, filling the gap created by a weak, undercapitalized banking sector. Using a quasi‐random empirical design based on detailed bidding information, we show that PE‐acquired banks performed better ex post, with positive real effects for the local economy. Overall, PE investors played a positive role in stabilizing the financial system through their involvement in failed‐bank resolution.
Scope, Scale, and Concentration: The 21st‐Century Firm
Version of Record online: 11/4/2024 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13400
GERARD HOBERG, GORDON M. PHILLIPS
We provide evidence using firm 10‐Ks that over the past 30 years, U.S. firms have expanded their scope of operations. Increases in scope were achieved largely without increasing traditional operating segments. Scope expansion significantly increases valuation and is realized primarily through acquisitions and investment in R&D, but not through capital expenditures. Traditional concentration ratios do not capture this expansion of scope. Our findings point to a new type of firm that increases scope through related expansion, which is highly valued by the market.
Version of Record online: 10/27/2024 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13401
JONATHAN BROGAARD, MATTHEW C. RINGGENBERG, DOMINIK ROESCH
Although algorithmic trading now dominates financial markets, some exchanges continue to use human floor traders. On March 23, 2020 the NYSE suspended floor trading because of COVID‐19. Using a difference‐in‐differences analysis around the closure of the floor, we find that floor traders are important contributors to market quality. The suspension of floor trading leads to higher spreads and larger pricing errors for treated stocks relative to control stocks. To explore the mechanism, we exploit two partial floor reopenings that have different characteristics. Our finding suggests that in‐person human interaction facilitates the transfer of valuable information that algorithms lack.
Equilibrium Data Mining and Data Abundance
Version of Record online: 10/27/2024 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13397
JÉRÔME DUGAST, THIERRY FOUCAULT
We study theoretically how the proliferation of new data (“data abundance”) affects the allocation of capital between quantitative and nonquantitative asset managers (“data miners” and “experts”), their performance, and price informativeness. Data miners search for predictors of asset payoffs and select those with a sufficiently high precision. Data abundance raises the precision of the best predictors, but it can induce data miners to search less intensively for high‐precision signals. In this case, their performance becomes more dispersed and they receive less capital. Nevertheless, data abundance always raises price informativeness and can therefore reduce asset managers' average performance.
Carbon Returns across the Globe
Version of Record online: 10/21/2024 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13402
SHAOJUN ZHANG
The pricing of carbon transition risk is central to the debate on climate‐aware investments. Emissions are tightly linked to sales and are available to investors only with significant lags. The positive carbon return, or brown‐minus‐green return differential, documented in previous studies arises from forward‐looking firm performance information contained in emissions rather than a risk premium in ex ante expected returns. After accounting for the data release lag, carbon returns turn negative in the United States and insignificant globally. Developed markets experience lower carbon returns due to intense climate concern shocks, while countries with stringent climate policies exhibit higher carbon returns.