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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Search results: 4.
Leverage Choice and Credit Spreads when Managers Risk Shift
Published: 11/09/2010 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2010.01617.x
MURRAY CARLSON, ALI LAZRAK
We model the debt and asset risk choice of a manager with performance‐insensitive pay (cash) and performance‐sensitive pay (stock) to theoretically link compensation structure, leverage, and credit spreads. The model predicts that optimal leverage trades off the tax benefit of debt against the utility cost of ex‐post asset substitution and that credit spreads are increasing in the ratio of cash‐to‐stock. Using a large cross‐section of U.S.‐based corporate credit default swaps (CDS) covering 2001 to 2006, we find a positive association between cash‐to‐stock and CDS rates, and between cash‐to‐stock and leverage ratios.
Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for SEO Event Studies and Long‐Run Performance
Published: 05/16/2006 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00865.x
MURRAY CARLSON, ADLAI FISHER, RON GIAMMARINO
We present a rational theory of SEOs that explains a pre‐issuance price run‐up, a negative announcement effect, and long‐run post‐issuance underperformance. When SEOs finance investment in a real options framework, expected returns decrease endogenously because growth options are converted into assets in place. Regardless of their risk, the new assets are less risky than the options they replace. Although both size and book‐to‐market effects are present, standard matching procedures fail to fully capture the dynamics of risk and expected return. We calibrate the model and show that it closely matches the primary features of SEO return dynamics.
Equilibrium Exhaustible Resource Price Dynamics
Published: 08/14/2007 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2007.01254.x
MURRAY CARLSON, ZEIGHAM KHOKHER, SHERIDAN TITMAN
We develop equilibrium models of exhaustible resource markets with endogenous extraction choices and prices. Our analysis demonstrates how adjustment costs can generate oil and gas forward price dynamics with two factors, consistent with the behavior these commodities exhibit in the Schwartz and Smith (2000) calibration. Our two‐factor model predicts that stochastic volatility will arise in these markets as a natural consequence of production adjustments, however, and we provide supporting empirical evidence. Differences between endogenous price processes from our general equilibrium model and exogenous processes in earlier papers can generate significant differences in both financial and real option values.
Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for the Cross‐section of Returns
Published: 11/27/2005 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2004.00709.x
MURRAY CARLSON, ADLAI FISHER, RON GIAMMARINO
We show that corporate investment decisions can explain the conditional dynamics in expected asset returns. Our approach is similar in spirit to Berk, Green, and Naik (1999), but we introduce to the investment problem operating leverage, reversible real options, fixed adjustment costs, and finite growth opportunities. Asset betas vary over time with historical investment decisions and the current product market demand. Book‐to‐market effects emerge and relate to operating leverage, while size captures the residual importance of growth options relative to assets in place. We estimate and test the model using simulation methods and reproduce portfolio excess returns comparable to the data.