The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.

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High‐Water Marks: High Risk Appetites? Convex Compensation, Long Horizons, and Portfolio Choice

Published: 1/23/2009,  Volume: 64,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01427.x  |  Cited by: 171

STAVROS PANAGEAS, MARK M. WESTERFIELD

We study the portfolio choice of hedge fund managers who are compensated by high‐water mark contracts. We find that even risk‐neutral managers do not place unbounded weights on risky assets, despite option‐like contracts. Instead, they place a constant fraction of funds in a mean‐variance efficient portfolio and the rest in the riskless asset, acting as would constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) investors. This result is a direct consequence of the in(de)finite horizon of the contract. We show that the risk‐seeking incentives of option‐like contracts rely on combining finite horizons and convex compensation schemes rather than on convexity alone.


Capital Commitment

Published: 8/27/2024,  Volume: 79,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13382  |  Cited by: 13

ELISE GOURIER, LUDOVIC PHALIPPOU, MARK M. WESTERFIELD

Twelve trillion dollars are allocated to private market funds that require outside investors to commit to transferring capital on demand. We show within a novel dynamic portfolio allocation model that ex‐ante commitment has large effects on investors' portfolios and welfare, and we quantify those effects. Investors are underallocated to private market funds and are willing to pay a larger premium to adjust the quantity committed than to eliminate other frictions, like timing uncertainty and limited tradability. Perhaps counterintuitively, commitment risk premiums increase with secondary market liquidity, and they do not disappear when investments are spread over many funds.


A NOTE ON THE MEASUREMENT OF CONGLOMERATE DIVERSIFICATION

Published: 9/1970,  Volume: 25,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1970.tb00564.x  |  Cited by: 12

Randolph Westerfield


A BEHAVIORAL APPROACH TO THE INVESTMENT‐MANAGEMENT DECISION AND TO THE SECURITIES MARKETS*

Published: 3/1969,  Volume: 24,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1969.tb00359.x  |  Cited by: 0

Randolph Westerfield


Looking for Someone to Blame: Delegation, Cognitive Dissonance, and the Disposition Effect

Published: 1/14/2016,  Volume: 71,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12311  |  Cited by: 261

TOM Y. CHANG, DAVID H. SOLOMON, MARK M. WESTERFIELD

We analyze brokerage data and an experiment to test a cognitive dissonance based theory of trading: investors avoid realizing losses because they dislike admitting that past purchases were mistakes, but delegation reverses this effect by allowing the investor to blame the manager instead. Using individual trading data, we show that the disposition effect—the propensity to realize past gains more than past losses—applies only to nondelegated assets like individual stocks; delegated assets, like mutual funds, exhibit a robust reverse‐disposition effect. In an experiment, we show that increasing investors' cognitive dissonance results in both a larger disposition effect in stocks and a larger reverse‐disposition effect in funds. Additionally, increasing the salience of delegation increases the reverse‐disposition effect in funds. Cognitive dissonance provides a unified explanation for apparently contradictory investor behavior across asset classes and has implications for personal investment decisions, mutual fund management, and intermediation.


The Price Impact and Survival of Irrational Traders

Published: 1/20/2006,  Volume: 61,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00834.x  |  Cited by: 261

LEONID KOGAN, STEPHEN A. ROSS, JIANG WANG, MARK M. WESTERFIELD

Milton Friedman argued that irrational traders will consistently lose money, will not survive, and, therefore, cannot influence long‐run asset prices. Since his work, survival and price impact have been assumed to be the same. In this paper, we demonstrate that survival and price impact are two independent concepts. The price impact of irrational traders does not rely on their long‐run survival, and they can have a significant impact on asset prices even when their wealth becomes negligible. We also show that irrational traders' portfolio policies can deviate from their limits long after the price process approaches its long‐run limit.


Co‐Skewness and Capital Asset Pricing

Published: 9/1980,  Volume: 35,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1980.tb03508.x  |  Cited by: 130

IRWIN FRIEND, RANDOLPH WESTERFIELD


The Week‐End Effect in Common Stock Returns: The International Evidence

Published: 6/1985,  Volume: 40,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb04966.x  |  Cited by: 280

JEFFREY JAFFE, RANDOLPH WESTERFIELD

This paper examines the daily stock market returns for four foreign countries. We find a so‐called “week‐end effect” in each country. In addition, the lowest mean returns for the Japanese and Australian stock markets occur on Tuesday.The remainder of the paper answers four questions. Are seasonal patterns in foreign stock markets independent of those previously reported in the U.S.? Do Japan and Australia exhibit a seasonal one day out of phase due to different time zones? Do settlement procedures across countries bias week‐end effects? Does the seasonal pattern in foreign exchange offset the week‐end effect in stocks for Americans investing overseas?


A PROBLEM IN PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION TECHNIQUES FOR CAPITAL BUDGETING

Published: 6/1972,  Volume: 27,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1972.tb00994.x  |  Cited by: 13

Robert H. Keeley, Randolph Westerfield


NEW EVIDENCE ON THE CAPITAL ASSET PRICING MODEL

Published: 6/1978,  Volume: 33,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1978.tb02030.x  |  Cited by: 64

Irwin Friend, Randolph Westerfield, Michael Granito


Earnings Yields, Market Values, and Stock Returns

Published: 3/1989,  Volume: 44,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1989.tb02408.x  |  Cited by: 295

JEFFREY JAFFE, DONALD B. KEIM, RANDOLPH WESTERFIELD

Earlier evidence concerning the relation between stock returns and the effects of size and earnings to price ratio (E/P) is not clear‐cut. This paper re‐examines these two effects with (a) a substantially longer sample period, 1951–1986, (b) data that are reasonably free of survivor biases, (c) both portfolio and seemingly unrelated regression tests, and (d) an emphasis on the important differences between January and other months. Over the entire period, the earnings yield effect is significant in both January and the other eleven months. Conversely, the size effect is significantly negative only in January. We also find evidence of consistently high returns for firms of all sizes with negative earnings.


Testing An Aggressive Investment Strategy Using Value Line Ranks: A Comment

Published: 3/1983,  Volume: 38,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1983.tb03642.x  |  Cited by: 5

MARK HANNA


Credit Risk in Private Debt Portfolios

Published: 8/1998,  Volume: 53,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00056  |  Cited by: 159

Mark Carey

Default, loss severity, and average loss rates for a large sample of privately placed bonds are presented and compared with loss experience for publicly issued bonds. The chance of very large portfolio losses is estimated and some determinants of such losses are analyzed. Results show ex ante riskier classes of private debt perform better on average than public debt. Both diversification and the riskiness of individual portfolio assets influence the bad tail of the portfolio loss distribution. Private placements are similar to corporate loans in that both are monitored private debt. The results are thus relevant to management and securitization of private debt portfolios generally.


Informational Efficiency and Information Subsets

Published: 3/1986,  Volume: 41,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1986.tb04490.x  |  Cited by: 17

MARK LATHAM

This paper proposes a new definition of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis with respect to information, which is more formal and precise than those of Rubinstein [13], Fama [4], Jensen [6], and Beaver [1], and which fits well as a framework for interpreting the many tests of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis in the literature. Security markets are here considered “efficient with respect to information set ϕ” if and only if revealing ϕ to all agents would change neither equilibrium prices nor portfolios. In addition to other desirable features, this definition has the “subset property”: efficiency with respect to ϕ implies efficiency with respect to any subset of ϕ.


CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY POTENTIAL, STOCKHOLDER RETURNS AND SHARE VALUATION: COMMENT

Published: 6/1972,  Volume: 27,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1972.tb00995.x  |  Cited by: 0

Mark Hanna


SHORT INTEREST: BULLISH OR BEARISH?—COMMENT*

Published: 6/1968,  Volume: 23,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1968.tb00826.x  |  Cited by: 3

Mark Hanna


AN INVESTOR EXPECTATIONS STOCK PRICE PREDICTIVE MODEL USING CLOSED‐END FUND PREMIUMS: COMMENT

Published: 9/1977,  Volume: 32,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1977.tb03340.x  |  Cited by: 3

Mark Hanna


A Simple Formula for the Expected Rate of Return of an Option over a Finite Holding Period

Published: 12/1984,  Volume: 39,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1984.tb04920.x  |  Cited by: 39

MARK RUBINSTEIN

Under conditions consistent with the Black‐Scholes formula, a simple formula is developed for the expected rate of return of an option over a finite holding period possibly less than the time to expiration of the option. Under these conditions, surprisingly, the expected future value of a European option, even prior to expiration, is shown equal to the current Black‐Scholes value of the option, except that the expected future value of the stock at the end of the holding period replaces the current stock price in the Black‐Scholes formula and the future value of a riskless invesment of the striking price replaces the striking price. An extension of this result is used to approximate moments of the distribution of returns from an option portfolio.


Displaced Diffusion Option Pricing

Published: 3/1983,  Volume: 38,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1983.tb03636.x  |  Cited by: 126

MARK RUBINSTEIN

This paper develops a new option pricing formula that pushes the underlying source of risk back to the risk of individual assets of the firm. The formula simultaneously encompasses differential riskiness of the assets of the firm, their relative weights in determining the value of the firm, the effects of firm debt, and the effects of a dividend policy with both constant and random components. Although this setting considerably generalizes the Black‐Scholes [1] analysis, it nonetheless produces a formula via riskless arbitrage arguments that, given estimated inputs, is as easy to use as the Black‐Scholes formula.


Nonparametric Tests of Alternative Option Pricing Models Using All Reported Trades and Quotes on the 30 Most Active CBOE Option Classes from August 23, 1976 through August 31, 1978

Published: 6/1985,  Volume: 40,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb04967.x  |  Cited by: 453

MARK RUBINSTEIN

The tests reported here differ in several ways from those of most other papers testing option pricing models: an extremely large sample of observations of both trades and bid‐ask quotes is examined, careful consideration is given to discarding misleading records, nonparametric rather than parametric statistical tests are used, reported results are not sensitive to measurement of stock volatility, special care is taken to incorporate the effects of dividends and early exercise, a simple method is developed to test several option pricing formulas simultaneously, and the statistical significance and consistency across subsamples of the most important reported results are unusually high. The three key results are: (1) short‐maturity out‐of‐the‐money calls are priced significantly higher relative to other calls than the Black‐Scholes model would predict, (2) striking price biases relative to the Black‐Scholes model are also statistically significant but have reversed themselves after long periods of time, and (3) no single option pricing model currently developed seems likely to explain this reversal.


The Arbitrage Pricing Theory and Supershares

Published: 6/1989,  Volume: 44,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1989.tb05057.x  |  Cited by: 5

MARK LATHAM

In a single‐period model with options on the market portfolio, linear factor pricing holds if and only if the variance of the market conditional on the factors is zero. There is no need for factors other than nonlinear functions of the market. For accurate linear pricing of all payoff patterns the factors must be rotationally equivalent to Hakansson's “supershares.” In a multiperiod model, a similar set of results holds, but with consumption replacing the market payoff. The methodology of the empirical Arbitrage Pricing Theory literature is not consistent with either the single‐period model or the multiperiod model.


The Irrelevancy of Dividend Policy in an Arrow‐Debreu Economy

Published: 9/1976,  Volume: 31,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1976.tb01972.x  |  Cited by: 12

Mark Rubinstein


Brokers versus Retail Investors: Conflicting Interests and Dominated Products

Published: 3/18/2019,  Volume: 74,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12763  |  Cited by: 160

MARK EGAN

I study how brokers distort household investment decisions. Using a novel convertible bond data set, I find that consumers often purchase dominated bonds—cheap and expensive otherwise‐identical bonds coexist in the market. Brokers are incentivized to sell the dominated bonds, typically earning two times greater fees for selling them. I develop and estimate a broker‐intermediated search model that rationalizes this behavior. The estimates indicate that costly search is a key friction in financial markets, but the effects of search costs are compounded when brokers are incentivized to direct the search of consumers toward high‐fee inferior products.


Implied Binomial Trees

Published: 7/1994,  Volume: 49,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1994.tb00079.x  |  Cited by: 1197

MARK RUBINSTEIN

Abstract This article develops a new method for inferring risk‐neutral probabilities (or state‐contingent prices) from the simultaneously observed prices of European options. These probabilities are then used to infer a unique fully specified recombining binomial tree that is consistent with these probabilities (and, hence, consistent with all the observed option prices). A simple backwards recursive procedure solves for the entire tree. From the standpoint of the standard binomial option pricing model, which implies a limiting risk‐neutral lognormal distribution for the underlying asset, the approach here provides the natural (and probably the simplest) way to generalize to arbitrary ending risk‐neutral probability distributions.


Computing the Constant Elasticity of Variance Option Pricing Formula

Published: 3/1989,  Volume: 44,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1989.tb02414.x  |  Cited by: 247

MARK SCHRODER

This paper expresses the constant elasticity of variance option pricing formula in terms of the noncentral chi‐square distribution. This allows the application of well‐known approximation formulas and the derivation of a whole class of closed‐form solutions. In addition, a simple and efficient algorithm for computing this distribution is presented.


Risk‐Neutral Parameter Shifts and Derivatives Pricing in Discrete Time

Published: 10/2004,  Volume: 59,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2004.00702.x  |  Cited by: 37

MARK SCHRODER

We obtain a large class of discrete‐time risk‐neutral valuation relationships, or “preference‐free” derivatives pricing models, by imposing a simple restriction on the state‐price density process. The risk‐neutral stock‐return and forward‐rate dynamics are obtained by changing only a location parameter, which can be determined independent of the preference and true location parameters. The Gaussian models of Rubinstein (1976), Brennan (1979), and Câmera (2003), and the gamma model of Heston (1993) are all special cases. The model provides simple relationships between expected returns and state‐price density parameters analogous to the diffusion case.


Markowitz's “Portfolio Selection”: A Fifty‐Year Retrospective

Published: 6/2002,  Volume: 57,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/1540-6261.00453  |  Cited by: 266

Mark Rubinstein


Bond Systematic Risk and the Option Pricing Model

Published: 12/1983,  Volume: 38,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1983.tb03832.x  |  Cited by: 20

MARK I. WEINSTEIN

In this paper we examine the behavior of the systematic risk of corporate bonds. A model that assumes β is constant is compared with a model that allows systematic risk to vary in a manner consistent with the Black‐Scholes‐Merton Options Pricing Model. This procedure captures some fundamental properties of the movement of bond β and provides a starting point for improved models of the process generating bond returns.


DISCUSSION

Published: 5/1981,  Volume: 36,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1981.tb00475.x  |  Cited by: 1

MARK J. FLANNERY


On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance

Published: 3/1997,  Volume: 52,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1997.tb03808.x  |  Cited by: 14592

Mark M. Carhart

Using a sample free of survivor bias, I demonstrate that common factors in stock returns and investment expenses almost completely explain persistence in equity mutual funds' mean and risk‐adjusted returns. Hendricks, Patel and Zeckhauser's (1993) “hot hands” result is mostly driven by the one‐year momentum effect of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993) , but individual funds do not earn higher returns from following the momentum strategy in stocks. The only significant persistence not explained is concentrated in strong underperformance by the worst‐return mutual funds. The results do not support the existence of skilled or informed mutual fund portfolio managers.


THE INTEREST ELASTICITY OF THE RATIO OF FIXED INVESTMENT TO NATIONAL INCOME AS ESTIMATED FROM ENGINEERING PAYOUT STUDIES*

Published: 9/1964,  Volume: 19,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1964.tb02878.x  |  Cited by: 0

Mark Liddell Wehle


Market Interest Rates and Commercial Bank Profitability: An Empirical Investigation

Published: 12/1981,  Volume: 36,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1981.tb01078.x  |  Cited by: 97

MARK J. FLANNERY

The widespread notion that commercial banks “borrow short and lend long” implies that sharp market interest rate increases may induce a significant number of banking failures. This paper develops a method for estimating average asset and liability maturities for a sample of large money center banks. Regression models are tested to determine if market rate fluctuations have a significant impact on bank profitability. The conclusion is negative: large banks have effectively hedged themselves against market rate risk by assembling asset and liability portfolios with similar average maturities.


The Numeraire Problem and Foreign Exchange Risk

Published: 5/1981,  Volume: 36,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1981.tb00456.x  |  Cited by: 2

MARK R. EAKER


THE INSIDE LAGS OF MONETARY POLICY: 1952–1960

Published: 12/1967,  Volume: 22,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1967.tb00294.x  |  Cited by: 1

Mark H. Willes


THE SEASONING PROCESS OF NEW CORPORATE BOND ISSUES

Published: 12/1978,  Volume: 33,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1978.tb03424.x  |  Cited by: 24

Mark I. Weinstein


Executive Option Repricing, Incentives, and Retention

Published: 6/2004,  Volume: 59,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2004.00659.x  |  Cited by: 71

Mark A. Chen

While many firms grant executive stock options that can be repriced, other firms systematically restrict or prohibit repricing. This article investigates the determinants of firms' repricing policies and the consequences of such policies for executive turnover and retention. Firms that have better internal governance, that use more powerful stock‐based incentives, or that face less shareholder scrutiny are more likely to maintain repricing flexibility. Firms that restrict repricing are more vulnerable to voluntary executive turnover following stock price declines. When share price declines are severe, restricting firms appear to award unusually large numbers of new options.


Asymmetric Information and Risky Debt Maturity Choice

Published: 3/1986,  Volume: 41,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1986.tb04489.x  |  Cited by: 825

MARK J. FLANNERY

When capital market investors and firm insiders possess the same information about a company's prospects, its liabilities will be priced in a way that makes the firm indifferent to the composition of its financial liabilities (at least under certain, well‐known circumstances). However, if firm insiders are systematically better informed than outside investors, they will choose to issue those types of securities that the market appears to overvalue most. Knowing this, rational investors will try to infer the insiders' information from the firm's financial structure. This paper evaluates the extent to which a firm's choice of risky debt maturity can signal insiders' information about firm quality. If financial market transactions are costless, a firm's financial structure cannot provide a valid signal. With positive transaction costs, however, high‐quality firms can sometimes effectively signal their true quality to the market. The existence of a signalling equilibrium is shown to depend on the (exogenous) distribution of firms' quality and the magnitude of underwriting costs for corporate debt.


Towards a Semigroup Pricing Theory

Published: 7/1985,  Volume: 40,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb05010.x  |  Cited by: 18

MARK B. GARMAN

In an arbitrage‐free economy, there will always exist a set of linear operators which map future contingent dividends of securities into their current prices. It happens that such operators will also form an “evolution semigroup” as a consequence of intertemporal analysis of the no‐arbitrage restriction. This paper summarizes some of the major implications of the semigroup properties, but avoids almost all of the technical discussion which underlies them. Instead, several practical examples are presented. Some well‐known continuous‐time results are replicated by this alternative method, and certain new developments are explored.


DISCUSSION

Published: 5/1980,  Volume: 35,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1980.tb02186.x  |  Cited by: 0

Mark A. Wolfson


The Sampling Error in Estimates of Mean‐Variance Efficient Portfolio Weights

Published: 4/1999,  Volume: 54,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00120  |  Cited by: 406

Mark Britten‐Jones

This paper presents an exact finite‐sample statistical procedure for testing hypotheses about the weights of mean‐variance efficient portfolios. The estimation and inference procedures on efficient portfolio weights are performed in the same way as for the coefficients in an OLS regression. OLS t‐ and F‐statistics can be used for tests on efficient weights, and when returns are multivariate normal, these statistics have exact t and F distributions in a finite sample. Using 20 years of data on 11 country stock indexes, we find that the sampling error in estimates of the weights of a global efficient portfolio is large.


AN ANALYSIS OF CREDIT INSURANCE*

Published: 3/1957,  Volume: 12,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1957.tb04118.x  |  Cited by: 0

Mark Richard Greene


Bank Loan Supply, Lender Choice, and Corporate Capital Structure

Published: 5/20/2009,  Volume: 64,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01461.x  |  Cited by: 292

MARK T. LEARY

This paper explores the relevance of capital market supply frictions for corporate capital structure decisions. To identify this relationship, I study the effect on firms' financial structures of two changes in bank funding constraints: the 1961 emergence of the market for certificates of deposit, and the 1966 Credit Crunch. Following an expansion (contraction) in the availability of bank loans, leverage ratios of bank‐dependent firms significantly increase (decrease) relative to firms with bond market access. Concurrent changes in the composition of financing sources lend further support to the role of credit supply and debt market segmentation in capital structure choice.


Borrower Misreporting and Loan Performance

Published: 1/19/2015,  Volume: 70,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12156  |  Cited by: 116

MARK J. GARMAISE

Borrower misreporting is associated with seriously adverse loan outcomes. Significantly more residential mortgage borrowers reported personal assets just above round number thresholds than just below. Borrowers who reported above‐threshold assets were almost 25 percentage points more likely to become delinquent (mean delinquency was 20%). For applicants with unverified assets, the increase in delinquency was greater than 40 percentage points. Misreporting was most frequent in areas with low financial literacy or social capital. Incorporating behavioral cues such as threshold effects into a risk assessment model improves its ability to uncover delinquencies, though at a cost of mischaracterizing some safe loans.


A MEAN‐VARIANCE SYNTHESIS OF CORPORATE FINANCIAL THEORY

Published: 3/1973,  Volume: 28,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1973.tb01356.x  |  Cited by: 234

Mark E. Rubinstein


Is the Corporate Loan Market Globally Integrated? A Pricing Puzzle

Published: 11/28/2007,  Volume: 62,  Issue: 6  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2007.01298.x  |  Cited by: 168

MARK CAREY, GREG NINI

We offer evidence that interest rate spreads on syndicated loans to corporate borrowers are economically significantly smaller in Europe than in the United States, other things equal. Differences in borrower, loan, and lender characteristics do not appear to explain this phenomenon. Borrowers overwhelmingly issue in their natural home market and bank portfolios display home bias. This may explain why pricing discrepancies are not competed away, though their causes remain a puzzle. Thus, important determinants of loan origination market outcomes remain to be identified, home bias appears to be material for pricing, and corporate financing costs differ across Europe and the United States.


Around and Around: The Expectations Hypothesis

Published: 2/1998,  Volume: 53,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.145490  |  Cited by: 20

Mark Fisher, Christian Gilles

We show how to construct models of the term structure of interest rates in which the expectations hypothesis holds. McCulloch (1993) presents such a model, thereby contradicting an assertion by Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1981), but his example is Gaussian and falls outside the class of finite‐dimensional Markovian models. We generalize McCulloch's model in three ways: (i) We provide an arbitrage‐free characterization of the unbiased expectations hypothesis in terms of forward rates; (ii) we extend this characterization to a whole class of expectations hypotheses; and (iii) we show how to construct finite‐dimensional Markovian and non‐Gaussian examples.


Relative Pricing of Eurodollar Futures and Forward Contracts

Published: 9/1996,  Volume: 51,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb04077.x  |  Cited by: 25

MARK GRINBLATT, NARASIMHAN JEGADEESH

Past research explains observed spreads between futures and forward Eurodollar yields as being due to the futures contract's mark‐to‐market feature. We derive closed form solutions for this yield spread and show that, theoretically, it should be small. Also, differences in liquidity, taxation, and default risk cannot account for the large spreads observed. We also present evidence that the spreads, which are nonnegligible primarily in the first half of the sample period, are likely to be attributable to the mispricing of futures contracts relative to the forward rates and that the mispricing was gradually eliminated over time.


THE STRONG CASE FOR THE GENERALIZED LOGARITHMIC UTILITY MODEL AS THE PREMIER MODEL OF FINANCIAL MARKETS

Published: 5/1976,  Volume: 31,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1976.tb01906.x  |  Cited by: 13

Robert Litzenberger, Mark Rubinstein

This paper begins by comparing the available well‐developed micro‐economic models in finance which recognize uncertainty. It is argued that models whose distinctive simplifying assumption restricts utility functions are superior to those which instead restrict probability distributions, both with respect to the realism of their assumptions and richness of their conclusions. In particular, the most successful model, based on generalized logarithmic utility (GLUM), is a multiperiod consumption/portfolio and equilibrium model in discrete‐time which (1) requires decreasing absolute risk aversion; (2) tolerates increasing, constant, or decreasing proportional risk aversion; (3) assumes no exogenous specification of the contemporaneous or intertemporal stochastic process of security prices; (4) tolerates heterogeneity with respect to wealth, lifetime, time‐and risk‐preference and beliefs; (5) results in a complete specification of consumption/portfolio decision and sharing rules which include nontrivial multiperiod separation properties and explains demand for default‐free bonds of various maturities and options; (6) leads to a solution to the aggregation problem; (7) results in a complete specification of the contemporaneous and intertemporal process of security prices which reveals necessary and sufficient conditions for an unbiased term structure and the market portfolio to follow a random walk as a natural outcome of equilibrium; (8) provides an empirically testable aggregate consumption function relating per capita consumption to per capita wealth and the present value of a perpetual default‐free annuity which does not require inferences of ex ante beliefs from ex post data; (9) provides a nontrivial multiperiod extension of popular single‐period security valuation models which is empirically testable; (10) yields a simple multiperiod valuation formula for an uncertain income stream even when this income is serially correlated over time.


Sensation Seeking, Overconfidence, and Trading Activity

Published: 3/13/2009,  Volume: 64,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01443.x  |  Cited by: 661

MARK GRINBLATT, MATTI KELOHARJU

This study analyzes the role that two psychological attributes—sensation seeking and overconfidence—play in the tendency of investors to trade stocks. Equity trading data from Finland are combined with data from investor tax filings, driving records, and mandatory psychological profiles. We use these data, obtained from a large population, to construct measures of overconfidence and sensation seeking tendencies. Controlling for a host of variables, including wealth, income, age, number of stocks owned, marital status, and occupation, we find that overconfident investors and those investors most prone to sensation seeking trade more frequently.


Is There a Window of Opportunity for Seasoned Equity Issuance?

Published: 3/1996,  Volume: 51,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb05209.x  |  Cited by: 261

MARK BAYLESS, SUSAN CHAPLINSKY

The aggregate volume of equity issues is used to search for periods when seasoned equity capital can be raised at favorable terms. We find that the price reaction to equity issue announcements in high equity issue volume (HOT) periods is approximately 200 basis points lower on average than in low equity issue volume (COLD) periods. The lower price reaction in hot markets is economically important and is independent of the macroeconomic characteristics of hot and cold markets. The evidence supports the existence of windows of opportunity for equity issues that result at least partially from reduced levels of asymmetric information.