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.
AFA members can log in to view full-text articles below.
View past issues
Search the Journal of Finance:
Search results: 50.
Actual Share Reacquisitions in Open‐Market Repurchase Programs
Published: 2/1998, Volume: 53, Issue: 1 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.115194 | Cited by: 639
Clifford P. Stephens, Michael S. Weisbach
Unlike Dutch auction repurchases and tender offers, open‐market repurchase programs do not precommit firms to acquire a specified number of shares. In a sample of 450 programs from 1981 to 1990, firms on average acquire 74 to 82 percent of the shares announced as repurchase targets within three years of the repurchase announcement. We find that share repurchases are negatively related to prior stock price performance, suggesting that firms increase their purchasing depending on its degree of perceived undervaluation. In addition, repurchases are positively related to levels of cash flow, which is consistent with liquidity arguments.
Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance
Published: 1/17/2012, Volume: 67, Issue: 1 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2011.01710.x | Cited by: 502
BENJAMIN E. HERMALIN, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
Public policy discussions typically favor greater corporate disclosure as a way to reduce firms' agency problems. This argument is incomplete because it overlooks that better disclosure regimes can also aggravate agency problems and related costs, including executive compensation. Consequently, a point can exist beyond which additional disclosure decreases firm value. Holding all else equal, we further show that larger firms will adopt stricter disclosure rules than smaller firms and firms with better disclosure will employ more able management. We show that mandated increases in disclosure could, in part, explain recent increases in both CEO compensation and CEO turnover rates.
The Success of Acquisitions: Evidence from Divestitures
Published: 3/1992, Volume: 47, Issue: 1 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1992.tb03980.x | Cited by: 546
STEVEN N. KAPLAN, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
This paper studies a sample of large acquisitions completed between 1971 and 1982. By the end of 1989, acquirers have divested almost 44% of the target companies. We characterize the ex post success of the divested acquisitions and consider 34% to 50% of classified divestitures as unsuccessful. Acquirer returns and total (acquirer and target) returns at the acquisition announcement are significantly lower for unsuccessful divestitures than for successful divestitures and acquisitions not divested. Although diversifying acquisitions are almost four times more likely to be divested than related acquisitions, we do not find strong evidence that diversifying acquisitions are less successful than related ones.
Climate Change, Demand Uncertainty, and Firms' Investments: Evidence from Planned Power Plants
Published: 7/23/2026, Volume: , Issue: | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.70071 | Cited by: 0
CHEN LIN, THOMAS SCHMID, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
How does demand uncertainty affect firms' investment decisions? We examine this question in the context of electricity‐producing firms' planned investments in new power plants. We measure uncertainty about future electricity demand using plausibly exogenous variation in temperature projections across scientific climate models. The results show that uncertainty increases investment in power plants with flexible production technologies, while reducing investment in less flexible technologies. Overall, the net effect of uncertainty on investment is positive when firms have access to flexible investment opportunities. These findings are consistent with models in which production flexibility shapes the investment response to demand uncertainty.
Do Acquisitions Relieve Target Firms’ Financial Constraints?
Published: 1/19/2015, Volume: 70, Issue: 1 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12155 | Cited by: 309
ISIL EREL, YEEJIN JANG, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
Managers often claim that target firms are financially constrained prior to being acquired and that these constraints are eased following the acquisition. Using a large sample of European acquisitions, we document that the level of cash that target firms hold, the sensitivity of cash to cash flow, and the sensitivity of investment to cash flow all decline, while investment increases following the acquisition. These effects are stronger in deals that are more likely to be associated with financing improvements. Our findings suggest that acquisitions relieve financial frictions in target firms, especially when the target firm is relatively small.
The Cash Flow Sensitivity of Cash
Published: 8/2004, Volume: 59, Issue: 4 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2004.00679.x | Cited by: 2691
Heitor Almeida, Murillo Campello, Michael S. Weisbach
We model a firm's demand for liquidity to develop a new test of the effect of financial constraints on corporate policies. The effect of financial constraints is captured by the firm's propensity to save cash out of cash flows (the
cash flow sensitivity of cash
). We hypothesize that constrained firms should have a positive cash flow sensitivity of cash, while unconstrained firms' cash savings should not be systematically related to cash flows. We empirically estimate the cash flow sensitivity of cash using a large sample of manufacturing firms over the 1971 to 2000 period and find robust support for our theory.
Why Are Buyouts Levered? The Financial Structure of Private Equity Funds
Published: 7/16/2009, Volume: 64, Issue: 4 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01473.x | Cited by: 235
ULF AXELSON, PER STRÖMBERG, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
Private equity funds are important to the economy, yet there is little analysis explaining their financial structure. In our model the financial structure minimizes agency conflicts between fund managers and investors. Relative to financing each deal separately, raising a fund where the manager receives a fraction of aggregate excess returns reduces incentives to make bad investments. Efficiency is further improved by requiring funds to also use deal‐by‐deal debt financing, which becomes unavailable in states where internal discipline fails. Private equity investment becomes highly sensitive to aggregate credit conditions and investments in bad states outperform investments in good states.
Determinants of Cross‐Border Mergers and Acquisitions
Published: 5/21/2012, Volume: 67, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2012.01741.x | Cited by: 726
ISIL EREL, ROSE C. LIAO, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
The vast majority of cross‐border mergers involve private firms outside of the United States. We analyze a sample of 56,978 cross‐border mergers between 1990 and 2007. We find that geography, the quality of accounting disclosure, and bilateral trade increase the likelihood of mergers between two countries. Valuation appears to play a role in motivating mergers: firms in countries whose stock market has increased in value, whose currency has recently appreciated, and that have a relatively high market‐to‐book value tend to be purchasers, while firms from weaker‐performing economies tend to be targets.
Indirect Incentives of Hedge Fund Managers
Published: 3/18/2016, Volume: 71, Issue: 2 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12384 | Cited by: 85
JONGHA LIM, BERK A. SENSOY, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
Indirect incentives exist in the money management industry when good current performance increases future inflows of capital, leading to higher future fees. For the average hedge fund, indirect incentives are at least 1.4 times as large as direct incentives from incentive fees and managers’ personal stakes in the fund. Combining direct and indirect incentives, manager wealth increases by at least $0.39 for a $1 increase in investor wealth. Younger and more scalable hedge funds have stronger flow‐performance relations, leading to stronger indirect incentives. These results have a number of implications for our understanding of incentives in the asset management industry.
The Influence of Institutions on Corporate Governance through Private Negotiations: Evidence from TIAA‐CREF
Published: 8/1998, Volume: 53, Issue: 4 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00055 | Cited by: 597
Willard T. Carleton, James M. Nelson, Michael S. Weisbach
This paper analyzes the process of private negotiations between financial institutions and the companies they attempt to influence. It relies on a private database consisting of the correspondence between TIAA‐CREF and 45 firms it contacted about governance issues between 1992 and 1996. This correspondence indicates that TIAA‐CREF is able to reach agreements with targeted companies more than 95 percent of the time. In more than 70 percent of the cases, this agreement is reached without shareholders voting on the proposal. We verify independently that at least 87 percent of the targets subsequently took actions to comply with these agreements.
Borrow Cheap, Buy High? The Determinants of Leverage and Pricing in Buyouts
Published: 11/12/2013, Volume: 68, Issue: 6 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12082 | Cited by: 324
ULF AXELSON, TIM JENKINSON, PER STRÖMBERG, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
Private equity funds pay particular attention to capital structure when executing leveraged buyouts, creating an interesting setting for examining capital structure theories. Using a large, international sample of buyouts from 1980 to 2008, we find that buyout leverage is unrelated to the cross‐sectional factors, suggested by traditional capital structure theories, that drive public firm leverage. Instead, variation in economy‐wide credit conditions is the main determinant of leverage in buyouts. Higher deal leverage is associated with higher transaction prices and lower buyout fund returns, suggesting that acquirers overpay when access to credit is easier.
Measuring Institutional Investors’ Skill at Making Private Equity Investments
Published: 6/20/2019, Volume: 74, Issue: 6 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12783 | Cited by: 68
DANIEL R. CAVAGNARO, BERK A. SENSOY, YINGDI WANG, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
Using a large sample of institutional investors’ investments in private equity funds raised between 1991 and 2011, we estimate the extent to which investors’ skill affects their returns. Bootstrap analyses show that the variance of actual performance is higher than would be expected by chance, suggesting that some investors consistently outperform. Extending the Bayesian approach of Korteweg and Sorensen, we estimate that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in skill leads to an increase in annual returns of between one and two percentage points. These results are stronger in the earlier part of the sample period and for venture funds.
Discount‐Rate Risk in Private Equity: Evidence from Secondary Market Transactions
Published: 2/16/2023, Volume: 78, Issue: 2 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13202 | Cited by: 25
BRIAN H. BOYER, TAYLOR D. NADAULD, KEITH P. VORKINK, MICHAEL S. WEISBACH
Measures of private equity (PE) performance based on cash flows do not account for a discount‐rate risk premium that is a component of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) alpha. We create secondary market PE indices and find that PE discount rates vary considerably. Net asset values are too smooth because they fail to reflect variation in discount rates. Although the CAPM alpha for our index is zero, the generalized public market equivalent based on cash flows is large and positive. We obtain similar results for a set of synthetic funds that invest in small cap stocks. Ignoring variation in PE discount rates can lead to a misallocation of capital.
PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS FIFTY‐SECOND ANNUAL MEETING AMERICAN FINANCE ASSOCIATION
Published: 7/1992, Volume: 47, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1992.tb03995.x | Cited by: 0
MICHAEL C. JENSEN, MICHAEL KEENAN
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1993, Volume: 48, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1993.tb04031.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 8/1998, Volume: 53, Issue: 4 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00059 | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
SYNERGISM IN MERGERS: SOME BRITISH RESULTS*
Published: 5/1978, Volume: 33, Issue: 2 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1978.tb04878.x | Cited by: 7
Michael Firth
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1986, Volume: 41, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1986.tb04542.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
THE COST OF CAPITAL AND VALUATION OF A TWO‐COUNTRY FIRM: REPLY
Published: 9/1977, Volume: 32, Issue: 4 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1977.tb03335.x | Cited by: 1
Michael Adler
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 7/1991, Volume: 46, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1991.tb03779.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
Does Borrowing from Banks Cost More than Borrowing from the Market?
Published: 10/30/2019, Volume: 75, Issue: 2 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12849 | Cited by: 134
MICHAEL SCHWERT
This paper investigates the pricing of bank loans relative to capital market debt. The analysis uses a novel sample of loans matched with bond spreads from the same firm on the same date. After accounting for seniority, lenders earn a large premium relative to the bond‐implied credit spread. In a sample of secured term loans to noninvestment‐grade firms, the average premium is 140 to 170 bps or about half of the all‐in‐drawn spread. This is the first direct evidence of firms' willingness to pay for bank credit and raises questions about the nature of competition in the loan market.
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer for the Year Ending September 30, 1989
Published: 7/1990, Volume: 45, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1990.tb05116.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1996, Volume: 51, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb02716.x | Cited by: 1
Michael Keenan
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1989, Volume: 44, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1989.tb04392.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
A Simple Nonparametric Approach to Derivative Security Valuation
Published: 12/1996, Volume: 51, Issue: 5 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb05220.x | Cited by: 227
MICHAEL STUTZER
Canonical valuation
uses historical time series to predict the probability distribution of the discounted value of primary assets' discounted prices plus accumulated dividends at any future date. Then the axiomatically‐rationalized
maximum entropy principle
is used to estimate risk‐neutral (equivalent martingale) probabilities that correctly price the primary assets, as well as any predesignated subset of derivative securities whose payoffs occur at this date. Valuation of other derivative securities proceeds by calculation of its discounted, risk‐neutral expected value. Both simulation and empirical evidence suggest that canonical valuation has merit.
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 7/1996, Volume: 51, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb02717.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
From the ExSec's Notebook
Published: 12/1998, Volume: 53, Issue: 6 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00094 | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
The Relationship Between Stock Market Returns and Rates of Inflation
Published: 6/1979, Volume: 34, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1979.tb02139.x | Cited by: 65
MICHAEL FIRTH
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 7/1992, Volume: 47, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1992.tb04013.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1995, Volume: 50, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1995.tb04044.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
A NOTE ON DIVIDEND IRRELEVANCE AND THE GORDON VALUATION MODEL*
Published: 12/1971, Volume: 26, Issue: 5 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1971.tb01752.x | Cited by: 15
Michael Brennan
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1991, Volume: 46, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1991.tb03778.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Kennan
THE INFORMATION CONTENT OF LARGE INVESTMENT HOLDINGS
Published: 12/1975, Volume: 30, Issue: 5 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1975.tb01054.x | Cited by: 5
Michael Firth
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 7/1993, Volume: 48, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1993.tb04032.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1997, Volume: 52, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1997.tb02731.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
The Statistical and Economic Role of Jumps in Continuous‐Time Interest Rate Models
Published: 2/2004, Volume: 59, Issue: 1 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6321.2004.00632.x | Cited by: 380
Michael Johannes
This paper analyzes the role of jumps in continuous‐time short rate models. I first develop a test to detect jump‐induced misspecification and, using Treasury bill rates, find evidence for the presence of jumps. Second, I specify and estimate a nonparametric jump‐diffusion model. Results indicate that jumps play an important statistical role. Estimates of jump times and sizes indicate that unexpected news about the macroeconomy generates the jumps. Finally, I investigate the pricing implications of jumps. Jumps generally have a minor impact on yields, but they are important for pricing interest rate options.
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 7/1989, Volume: 44, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1989.tb04393.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
FROM THE EXSEC'S NOTEBOOK
Published: 12/1997, Volume: 52, Issue: 5 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1997.tb02740.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
ON RISK‐ADJUSTED CAPITALIZATION RATES AND VALUATION BY INDIVIDUALS
Published: 9/1970, Volume: 25, Issue: 4 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1970.tb00556.x | Cited by: 3
Michael Adler
Municipal Bond Liquidity and Default Risk
Published: 6/13/2017, Volume: 72, Issue: 4 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12511 | Cited by: 254
MICHAEL SCHWERT
This paper examines the pricing of municipal bonds. I use three distinct, complementary approaches to decompose municipal bond spreads into default and liquidity components, and find that default risk accounts for 74% to 84% of the average spread after adjusting for tax‐exempt status. The first approach estimates the liquidity component using transaction data, the second measures the default component with credit default swap data, and the third is a quasi‐natural experiment that estimates changes in default risk around pre‐refunding events. The price of default risk is high given the rare incidence of municipal default and implies a high risk premium.
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 7/1986, Volume: 41, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1986.tb04543.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
THE COST OF CAPITAL AND VALUATION OF A TWO‐COUNTRY FIRM
Published: 3/1974, Volume: 29, Issue: 1 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1974.tb00028.x | Cited by: 15
Michael Adler
Hedging or Market Timing? Selecting the Interest Rate Exposure of Corporate Debt
Published: 3/2/2005, Volume: 60, Issue: 2 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00751.x | Cited by: 212
MICHAEL FAULKENDER
This paper examines whether firms are hedging or timing the market when selecting the interest rate exposure of their new debt issuances. I use a more accurate measure of the interest rate exposure chosen by firms by combining the initial exposure of newly issued debt securities with their use of interest rate swaps. The results indicate that the final interest rate exposure is largely driven by the slope of the yield curve at the time the debt is issued. These results suggest that interest rate risk management practices are primarily driven by speculation or myopia, not hedging considerations.
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1988, Volume: 43, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1988.tb04608.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting
Published: 7/1992, Volume: 47, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1992.tb04012.x | Cited by: 1
Michael Keenan
Fifty Years of the American Finance Association
Published: 7/1991, Volume: 46, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1991.tb03781.x | Cited by: 3
MICHAEL KEENAN
The American Finance Association was organized 50 years ago. This paper reflects on recent trends in Officers and Directors, Membership, Association Meetings, the Journal of Finance, and other activities. Appendix Tables provide historical data for the Association for the past 25 years.
CLO Performance
Published: 4/10/2023, Volume: 78, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13224 | Cited by: 32
LARRY CORDELL, MICHAEL R. ROBERTS, MICHAEL SCHWERT
We study the performance of collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) to understand the market imperfections giving rise to these vehicles and their corresponding economic costs. CLO equity tranches earn positive abnormal returns from the risk‐adjusted price differential between leveraged loans and CLO debt tranches. Debt tranches offer higher returns than similarly rated corporate bonds, making them attractive to banks and insurers that face risk‐based capital requirements. Temporal variation in equity performance highlights the resilience of CLOs to market volatility due to their closed‐end structure, long‐term funding, and embedded options to reinvest principal proceeds.
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer: for the Year Ending September 30, 1986
Published: 7/1987, Volume: 42, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1987.tb04587.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan
Report of the Executive Secretary and Treasurer
Published: 7/1995, Volume: 50, Issue: 3 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1995.tb04045.x | Cited by: 0
Michael Keenan