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.

AFA members can log in to view full-text articles below.

View past issues


Search the Journal of Finance:






Search results: 3.

Hedging and Coordinated Risk Management: Evidence from Thrift Conversions

Published: 12/17/2002   |   DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00041

Catherine Schrand, Haluk Unal

We provide an explanation for hedging as a means of allocating rather than reducing risk. We argue that when increases in total risk are costly, firms optimally allocate risk by reducing (increasing) exposure to risks that provide zero (positive) economic rents. Our evidence shows that mutual thrifts that convert to stock institutions increase total risk following conversion, consistent with their increased abilities and incentives for risk taking. They achieve this increase by hedging interest‐rate risk and increasing credit risk. We provide some evidence that risk‐management activities are related to growth capacity and management compensation structure attained at conversion.


Issue Size Choice and “Underpricing” in Thrift Mutual‐to‐Stock Conversions

Published: 12/01/1993   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1993.tb05124.x

VOJISLAV MAKSIMOVIC, HALUK UNAL

Issue size choice and underpricing in mutual‐to‐stock conversions of thrifts are explained as a function of growth opportunities, perquisite consumption, and proprietary information. We provide evidence that thrifts with greater growth opportunities choose larger issue size and experience higher after‐market price appreciation. This finding persists when we allow for investors' inferences about managers' proprietary information. Variables that explain underpricing in typical initial public offerings are significant by themselves but lose significance when combined with the issue size choice variables. Managerial holdings and the offer price do not act as dissipative signals of value in thrift conversions.


Modeling Structural and Temporal Variation in the Market's Valuation of Banking Firms

Published: 03/01/1990   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1990.tb05083.x

EDWARD J. KANE, HALUK UNAL

Hidden capital exists whenever the accounting measure of a firm's net worth diverges from its economic value. Such unbooked capital has on‐balance‐sheet and off‐balance‐sheet sources. This paper develops a model to estimate both forms of hidden capital and to test hypotheses about their determinants. In effect, the analysis expands the two‐index model by endogenizing the market and interest‐rate sensitivities of any stock and decomposing each sensitivity into on‐balance‐sheet and off‐balance‐sheet elements. For a sample of banks during 1975–1985, the model finds considerable variation in both forms of hidden capital.