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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The People in Your Neighborhood: Social Interactions and Mutual Fund Portfolios

Published: 11/12/2015,  Volume: 70,  Issue: 6  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12208  |  Cited by: 424

VERONIKA K. POOL, NOAH STOFFMAN, SCOTT E. YONKER

We find that socially connected fund managers have more similar holdings and trades. The overlap of funds whose managers reside in the same neighborhood is considerably higher than that of funds whose managers live in the same city but in different neighborhoods. These effects are larger when managers share a similar ethnic background, and are not explained by preferences. Valuable information is transmitted through these peer networks: a long‐short strategy composed of stocks purchased minus sold by neighboring managers delivers positive risk‐adjusted returns. Unlike prior empirical work, our tests disentangle the effects of social interactions from community effects.


THE CHANGING SIGNIFICANCE OF TREASURY OBLIGATIONS IN COMMERCIAL BANK PORTFOLIOS*

Published: 5/1957,  Volume: 12,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1957.tb04131.x  |  Cited by: 0

Ira Scott


MARKET VALUE AND FINANCIAL STRUCTURE IN THE RAILROAD INDUSTRY*

Published: 9/1962,  Volume: 17,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1962.tb04315.x  |  Cited by: 0

Scott Nielsen


The Tax Effects of Investment in Marketable Securities on Firm Valuation

Published: 5/1979,  Volume: 34,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1979.tb02093.x  |  Cited by: 4

JAMES H. SCOTT


ESTIMATES OF HICKSIAN IS AND LM CURVES FOR THE UNITED STATES*

Published: 9/1966,  Volume: 21,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1966.tb00248.x  |  Cited by: 0

Robert Haney Scott


ON THE THEORY OF CONGLOMERATE MERGERS

Published: 9/1977,  Volume: 32,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1977.tb03323.x  |  Cited by: 58

James H. Scott


Reputation and Performance Among Security Analysts

Published: 12/1992,  Volume: 47,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1992.tb04684.x  |  Cited by: 765

SCOTT E. STICKEL

Members of the Institutional Investor All‐American Research Team supply more accurate earnings forecasts than other analysts when forecasts are matched by the corporation followed and by the date of brokerage house issuance. This contemporaneous advantage is complemented by a timing advantage; All‐Americans supply forecasts more often than other analysts. Stocks returns immediately following large upward forecast revisions suggest that All‐Americans impact prices more than other analysts. However, there is virtually no difference in returns following large downward revisions. Nevertheless, the collective results suggest a positive relation between reputation and performance, and, assuming that All‐Americans are better paid, pay and performance.


MEASURING PERIOD PROFITABILITY: BOOK YIELD VERSUS TRUE YIELD*

Published: 3/1965,  Volume: 20,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1965.tb00191.x  |  Cited by: 0

Robert Scott Carlson


Bankruptcy, Secured Debt, and Optimal Capital Structure: Reply

Published: 3/1979,  Volume: 34,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1979.tb02086.x  |  Cited by: 11

JAMES H. SCOTT


PROBABLE IMPACT OF ATOMIC ENERGY ON ELECTRIC PUBLIC UTILITY SECURITIES*

Published: 5/1954,  Volume: 9,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1954.tb01219.x  |  Cited by: 0

Eldred H. Scott


AMBIGUITIES IN THE CROSS‐SECTION ANALYSIS OF PER SHARE FINANCIAL DATA: COMMENT

Published: 6/1977,  Volume: 32,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1977.tb02003.x  |  Cited by: 0

James H. Scott


EVALUATION OF PROSPECTIVE INVESTMENT PERFORMANCE

Published: 5/1968,  Volume: 23,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1968.tb00803.x  |  Cited by: 2

W. Scott Bauman


Management Buyout Proposals and inside Information

Published: 7/1992,  Volume: 47,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1992.tb04005.x  |  Cited by: 40

D. SCOTT LEE

This paper explores stock price behavior surrounding withdrawn buyout proposals to determine whether managers' proposal announcements reveal any information which is unrelated to the efficiency gains associated with completed buyouts. On average, firms whose managers withdraw buyout proposals do not sustain significantly positive stock price effects unless they receive subsequent acquisition bids. In addition, managers of firms with completed buyouts are no more likely to have access to inside information than managers who withdrew proposals. I interpret this evidence as inconsistent with the notion that inside information commonly motivates management buyout proposals.


INVESTMENT EXPERIENCE WITH LESS POPULAR COMMON STOCKS*

Published: 9/1962,  Volume: 17,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1962.tb04314.x  |  Cited by: 0

W. Scott Bauman


BANKRUPTCY, SECURED DEBT, AND OPTIMAL CAPITAL STRUCTURE

Published: 3/1977,  Volume: 32,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1977.tb03237.x  |  Cited by: 306

James H. Scott


DISCUSSION

Published: 7/1986,  Volume: 41,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1986.tb04517.x  |  Cited by: 0

SCOTT P. MASON


DISCUSSION

Published: 5/1980,  Volume: 35,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1980.tb02175.x  |  Cited by: 0

Scott F. Richard


HIGHER INTEREST RATES ON TIME DEPOSITS: COMMENT

Published: 3/1965,  Volume: 20,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1965.tb00186.x  |  Cited by: 0

Charlotte H. Scott


DEBT MANAGEMENT FOR ECONOMIC STABILITY*

Published: 9/1962,  Volume: 17,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1962.tb04326.x  |  Cited by: 0

Robert Haney Scott


The Puzzle of Financial Leverage Clienteles

Published: 12/1985,  Volume: 40,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb02394.x  |  Cited by: 1

ODED SARIG, JAMES SCOTT

Empirically, it appears that common stock of publicly traded corporations with high‐debt ratios tends to be held by investors with relatively low marginal taxes while the stock in companies with little debt is held by investors in high‐tax brackets. A number of authors have argued that in an equilibrium similar to the one described by Miller [8], these clienteles should exist. We argue that standard portfolio theory does not imply financial leverage clienteles for publicly traded firms. We explain the empirical relationship between investor tax rates and leverage ratios by the existence of dividend clienteles and a positive relationship between dividend yield and leverage ratios.


Biased Estimators and Unstable Betas

Published: 3/1980,  Volume: 35,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1980.tb03470.x  |  Cited by: 7

ELTON SCOTT, STEWART BROWN


Liquidity Provision and Noise Trading: Evidence from the “Investment Dartboard” Column

Published: 10/1999,  Volume: 54,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00171  |  Cited by: 66

Jason Greene, Scott Smart

How does increased noise trading affect market liquidity and trading costs? We use The Wall Street Journal's “Investment Dartboard” column, which stimulates noise trading, as a natural experiment to evaluate models of the bid‐ask spread. We find that substantial increases in trading volume and significant but temporary abnormal returns occur when analysts recommend stocks in this column, especially when recommendations come from analysts with successful contest track records. We also find an increase in liquidity and a decrease in the adverse selection component of the bid‐ask spread.


Local Does as Local Is: Information Content of the Geography of Individual Investors' Common Stock Investments

Published: 2/2005,  Volume: 60,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00730.x  |  Cited by: 1142

ZORAN IVKOVIĆ, SCOTT WEISBENNER

Using data on the investments a large number of individual investors made through a discount broker from 1991 to 1996, we find that households exhibit a strong preference for local investments. We test whether this locality bias stems from information or from simple familiarity. The average household generates an additional annualized return of 3.2% from its local holdings relative to its nonlocal holdings, suggesting that local investors can exploit local knowledge. Excess returns to investing locally are even larger among stocks not in the S&P 500 index (firms for which information asymmetries between local and nonlocal investors may be largest).


RISK, RETURN AND DISEQUILIBRIUM: AN APPLICATION TO CHANGES IN ACCOUNTING TECHNIQUES

Published: 5/1972,  Volume: 27,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1972.tb00964.x  |  Cited by: 0

W. Scott Bauman, Ray Ball


Does It Pay to Bet Against Beta? On the Conditional Performance of the Beta Anomaly

Published: 3/18/2016,  Volume: 71,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12383  |  Cited by: 110

SCOTT CEDERBURG, MICHAEL S. O'DOHERTY

Prior studies find that a strategy that buys high‐beta stocks and sells low‐beta stocks has a significantly negative unconditional capital asset pricing model (CAPM) alpha, such that it appears to pay to “bet against beta.” We show, however, that the conditional beta for the high‐minus‐low beta portfolio covaries negatively with the equity premium and positively with market volatility. As a result, the unconditional alpha is a downward‐biased estimate of the true alpha. We model the conditional market risk for beta‐sorted portfolios using instrumental variables methods and find that the conditional CAPM resolves the beta anomaly.


DISCUSSION

Published: 5/1977,  Volume: 32,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1977.tb03289.x  |  Cited by: 1

Bernard Dumas, James H. Scott


Capital Gains Tax Rules, Tax‐loss Trading, and Turn‐of‐the‐year Returns

Published: 2/2001,  Volume: 56,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00328  |  Cited by: 149

James M. Poterba, Scott J. Weisbenner

Changes in the capital gains tax rules facing individual investors do not affect the incentives for “window dressing” by institutional investors, but they can affect the incentives for year‐end tax–induced trading by individual investors. Empirical evidence for the 1963 to 1996 period suggests that when the tax law encouraged taxable investors who accrued losses early in the year to realize their losses before year‐end, the correlation between early year losses and turn‐of‐the‐year returns was weaker than when the law did not provide such an early realization incentive. These findings suggest that tax‐loss trading contributes to turn‐of‐the‐year return patterns.


The Resolution of Claims in Financial Distress the Case of Massey Ferguson

Published: 5/1983,  Volume: 38,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1983.tb02258.x  |  Cited by: 58

CARLISS Y. BALDWIN, SCOTT P. MASON


An Examination of Stock Market Return Volatility During Overnight and Intraday Periods, 1964–1989

Published: 6/1990,  Volume: 45,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1990.tb03705.x  |  Cited by: 116

LARRY J. LOCKWOOD, SCOTT C. LINN

This paper examines the variance of hourly market returns during 1964–1989. Results indicate that return volatility falls from the opening hour until early afternoon and rises thereafter and is significantly greater for intraday versus overnight periods. Market variance is also shown to change significantly over time, rising after NASDAQ began in 1971, rising after trading in stock options began in 1973, falling after fixed commissions were eliminated in 1975, rising after trading in stock index futures was introduced in 1982, and falling after margin requirements for stock index futures became larger in 1988.


On The Direction of Preference for Moments of Higher Order Than The Variance

Published: 9/1980,  Volume: 35,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1980.tb03509.x  |  Cited by: 548

ROBERT C. SCOTT, PHILIP A. HORVATH


Local Dividend Clienteles

Published: 3/21/2011,  Volume: 66,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2010.01645.x  |  Cited by: 231

BO BECKER, ZORAN IVKOVIĆ, SCOTT WEISBENNER

We exploit demographic variation to identify the effect of dividend demand on corporate payout policy. Retail investors tend to hold local stocks and older investors prefer dividend‐paying stocks. Together, these tendencies generate geographically varying demand for dividends. Firms headquartered in areas in which seniors constitute a large fraction of the population are more likely to pay dividends, initiate dividends, and have higher dividend yields. We also provide indirect evidence as to why managers may respond to the demand for dividends from local seniors. Overall, these results are consistent with the notion that the investor base affects corporate policy choices.


Risk Premiums in Dynamic Term Structure Models with Unspanned Macro Risks

Published: 5/8/2014,  Volume: 69,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12131  |  Cited by: 395

SCOTT JOSLIN, MARCEL PRIEBSCH, KENNETH J. SINGLETON

This paper quantifies how variation in economic activity and inflation in the United States influences the market prices of level, slope, and curvature risks in Treasury markets. We develop a novel arbitrage‐free dynamic term structure model in which bond investment decisions are influenced by output and inflation risks that are unspanned by (imperfectly correlated with) information about the shape of the yield curve. Our model reveals that, between 1985 and 2007, these risks accounted for a large portion of the variation in forward terms premiums, and there was pronounced cyclical variation in the market prices of level and slope risks.


Executive Financial Incentives and Payout Policy: Firm Responses to the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut

Published: 8/2007,  Volume: 62,  Issue: 4  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2007.01261.x  |  Cited by: 217

JEFFREY R. BROWN, NELLIE LIANG, SCOTT WEISBENNER

We test whether executive stock ownership affects firm payouts using the 2003 dividend tax cut to identify an exogenous change in the after‐tax value of dividends. We find that executives with higher ownership were more likely to increase dividends after the tax cut in 2003, whereas no relation is found in periods when the dividend tax rate was higher. Relative to previous years, firms that initiated dividends in 2003 were more likely to reduce repurchases. The stock price reaction to the tax cut suggests that the substitution of dividends for repurchases may have been anticipated, consistent with agency conflicts.


The Cross Section of MBS Returns

Published: 6/15/2021,  Volume: 76,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13055  |  Cited by: 26

PETER DIEP, ANDREA L. EISFELDT, SCOTT RICHARDSON

We present a simple, linear asset pricing model of the cross section of Mortgage‐Backed Security (MBS) returns. MBS earn risk premia as compensation for their exposure to prepayment risk. We measure prepayment risk and estimate risk loadings using prepayment forecasts versus realizations. Estimated loadings on prepayment risk decrease monotonically in securities' coupons relative to the par coupon, consistent with the predicted effect of prepayment on bond value. Prepayment risk appears to be priced by specialized MBS investors. The price of prepayment risk changes sign over time with the sign of a representative MBS investor's exposure to prepayment shocks.


Information Inertia

Published: 10/21/2020,  Volume: 76,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12979  |  Cited by: 41

PHILIPP K. ILLEDITSCH, JAYANT V. GANGULI, SCOTT CONDIE

We show that aversion to risk and ambiguity leads to information inertia when investors process public news about assets. Optimal portfolios do not always depend on news that is worse than expected; hence, the equilibrium stock price does not reflect this bad news. This informational inefficiency is more severe when there is more risk and ambiguity but disappears when investors are risk‐neutral or the news is about idiosyncratic risk. Information inertia leads to news momentum (e.g., after earnings announcements) and is consistent with low household trading activity. An ambiguity premium helps explain the macro and earnings announcement premium.


How Risky Are U.S. Corporate Assets?

Published: 1/2/2023,  Volume: 78,  Issue: 1  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13196  |  Cited by: 9

TETIANA DAVYDIUK, SCOTT RICHARD, IVAN SHALIASTOVICH, AMIR YARON

We use market data on corporate bonds and equities to measure the value of U.S. corporate assets and their payouts to investors. In contrast to equity dividends, total corporate payouts are highly volatile, turn negative when corporations raise capital, and are acyclical. At the same time, corporate asset returns are similar to returns on equity, and both are exposed to fluctuations in economic growth. To reconcile this evidence, we argue that acyclical but volatile net repurchases mask the exposure of total payouts' cash components to economic growth risks. We develop an asset pricing framework to quantitatively illustrate this economic channel.


Collusion in Brokered Markets

Published: 3/18/2025,  Volume: 80,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13432  |  Cited by: 5

JOHN WILLIAM HATFIELD, SCOTT DUKE KOMINERS, RICHARD LOWERY

High commissions in the U.S. residential real estate agency market pose a puzzle for economic theory because brokerage is not a concentrated industry. We model brokered markets as a game in which agents post prices for customers and then choose which other agents to work with. We show that there exists an equilibrium in which each agent conditions working with other agents on those agents' posted prices. Prices can therefore be meaningfully higher than the competitive level (for a fixed discount factor), regardless of the number of agents. Thus, brokered markets can remain uncompetitive even with low concentration and easy entry.


Contingent Claims Analysis of Corporate Capital Structures: an Empirical Investigation

Published: 7/1984,  Volume: 39,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1984.tb03649.x  |  Cited by: 502

E. PHILIP JONES, SCOTT P. MASON, ERIC ROSENFELD


Thirty Years of Change: The Evolution of Classified Boards

Published: 8/22/2025,  Volume: 80,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13485  |  Cited by: 18

SCOTT GUERNSEY, FENG GUO, TINGTING LIU, MATTHEW SERFLING

Based on a comprehensive data set of classified (staggered) boards covering nearly all U.S. public firms from 1991 to 2020, we show that contrary to conventional wisdom, the use of classified boards remains widespread. Moreover, classified board usage over a firm's life cycle depends significantly on the decade the firm matured or year it went public. While classified boards were rarely removed in the 1990s, firms became more likely to declassify as they matured during the following decades. Decreased collective action costs and increased innovation‐related investments, institutional ownership, and scrutiny of governance contributed to this more dynamic adjustment.


Does Investor Misvaluation Drive the Takeover Market?

Published: 3/9/2006,  Volume: 61,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00853.x  |  Cited by: 733

MING DONG, DAVID HIRSHLEIFER, SCOTT RICHARDSON, SIEW HONG TEOH

This paper uses pre‐offer market valuations to evaluate the misvaluation and Q theories of takeovers. Bidder and target valuations (price‐to‐book, or price‐to‐residual‐income‐model‐value) are related to means of payment, mode of acquisition, premia, target hostility, offer success, and bidder and target announcement‐period returns. The evidence is broadly consistent with both hypotheses. The evidence for the Q hypothesis is stronger in the pre‐1990 period than in the 1990–2000 period, whereas the evidence for the misvaluation hypothesis is stronger in the 1990–2000 period than in the pre‐1990 period.


Managers' Trading Around Stock Repurchases

Published: 12/1992,  Volume: 47,  Issue: 5  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1992.tb04690.x  |  Cited by: 120

D. SCOTT LEE, WAYNE H. MIKKELSON, M. MEGAN PARTCH

We analyze personal open market trades by managers around stock repurchases by tender offer. With the exception of Dutch auction offers, managers trade their firm's shares prior to repurchase announcements as though repurchases convey favorable inside information to outsiders. Prior to fixed price repurchase offers that do not follow takeover‐related events, managers increase their buying and reduce their selling of their firm's shares. Prior to repurchases that follow takeover‐related events, only a decrease in selling is found. No abnormal trading precedes Dutch auction repurchase offers.


Neighbors Matter: Causal Community Effects and Stock Market Participation

Published: 5/9/2008,  Volume: 63,  Issue: 3  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01364.x  |  Cited by: 632

JEFFREY R. BROWN, ZORAN IVKOVIĆ, PAUL A. SMITH, SCOTT WEISBENNER

This paper establishes a causal relation between an individual's decision whether to own stocks and average stock market participation of the individual's community. We instrument for the average ownership of an individual's community with lagged average ownership of the states in which one's nonnative neighbors were born. Combining this instrumental variables approach with controls for individual and community fixed effects, a broad set of time‐varying individual and community controls, and state‐year effects rules out alternative explanations. To further establish that word‐of‐mouth communication drives this causal effect, we show that the results are stronger in more sociable communities.


Debt Maturity, Risk, and Asymmetric Information

Published: 11/10/2005,  Volume: 60,  Issue: 6  |  DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00820.x  |  Cited by: 278

ALLEN N. BERGER, MARCO A. ESPINOSA‐VEGA, W. SCOTT FRAME, NATHAN H. MILLER

We test the implications of Flannery's (1986) and Diamond's (1991) models concerning the effects of risk and asymmetric information in determining debt maturity, and we examine the overall importance of informational asymmetries in debt maturity choices. We employ data on over 6,000 commercial loans from 53 large U.S. banks. Our results for low‐risk firms are consistent with the predictions of both theoretical models, but our findings for high‐risk firms conflict with the predictions of Diamond's model and with much of the empirical literature. Our findings also suggest a strong quantitative role for asymmetric information in explaining debt maturity.


The Impact of Minority Representation at Mortgage Lenders

Published: 2/11/2025,  Volume: 80,  Issue: 2  |  DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13428  |  Cited by: 24

W. SCOTT FRAME, RUIDI HUANG, ERICA XUEWEI JIANG, YEONJOON LEE, WILL SHUO LIU, ERIK J. MAYER, ADI SUNDERAM

We study links between the labor market for loan officers and access to mortgage credit. Using novel data matching mortgage applications to loan officers, we find that minorities are underrepresented among loan officers. Minority borrowers are less likely to complete mortgage applications, have completed applications approved, and to ultimately take up a loan. These disparities are reduced when minority borrowers work with minority loan officers. These pairings also lead to lower default rates, suggesting minority loan officers have an informational advantage with minority borrowers. Our results suggest minority underrepresentation among loan officers reduces minority borrowers’ access to credit.