Two-pass cross-sectional regression (TPCSR) is frequently used in estimating factor risk premia. Recent papers argue that the common practice of grouping assets into portfolios to reduce the errors-in-variables (EIV) problem leads to loss of efficiency and masks potential deviations from asset pricing models. One solution that allows the use of individual assets while overcoming the EIV problem is iterated TPCSR (ITPCSR). ITPCSR converges to a fixed point regardless of the initial factors chosen. ITPCSR is intimately linked to the asymptotic principal components (APC) method of estimating factors since the ITPCSR estimates are the APC estimates, up to a rotation.

We document that equity markets become less liquid and equity prices become less efficient when markets for single-name credit default swap (CDS) contracts emerge. This finding is robust across a variety of market quality measures. We analyze the potential mechanisms driving this result and find evidence consistent with negative trader-driven information spillovers that result from the introduction of CDS. These spillovers greatly outweigh the potentially positive effects associated with completing markets (e.g., CDS markets increase hedging opportunities) when firms and their equity markets are in “bad” states. In “good” states, we find some evidence that CDS markets can be beneficial.

We develop an international asset pricing model to measure the impact of investability constraints on asset pricing. For a sample of 18 emerging markets, we use Standard & Poor’s investable weight factor (IWF) to show a 26.33% reduction in the cost of equity capital when non-investable firms become partially investable, with a further 12.51% reduction when partially investable firms become unrestricted. We demonstrate the generality and usefulness of the IWF by examining stocks with global/American depositary receipts and foreign institutional holdings as alternate investability proxies. Our results provide strong evidence of the economic benefits of market liberalization policies.

We apply an empirical approximation of the intertemporal capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) to show that cross-sectional dispersion in currency returns can be rationalized by differences in currency excess returns’ sensitivities to the market return’s cash-flow news component. This finding echoes recent explanations of the value and growth stock market anomaly. The distinction between cash-flow news and discount-rate news is key to jointly explain average stock and currency returns. Our analysis reveals the presence of a common source of systematic risk in stock and foreign currency returns that is reflected in the market return’s cash-flow news component.

In portfolio risk minimization, the inverse covariance matrix prescribes the hedge trades in which a stock is hedged by all the other stocks in the portfolio. In practice with finite samples, however, multicollinearity makes the hedge trades too unstable and unreliable. By shrinking trade sizes and reducing the number of stocks in each hedge trade, we propose a “sparse” estimator of the inverse covariance matrix. Comparing favorably with other methods (equal weighting, shrunk covariance matrix, industry factor model, nonnegativity constraints), a portfolio formed on the proposed estimator achieves significant out-of-sample risk reduction and improves certainty equivalent returns after transaction costs.

The risk of securities class action litigation alters corporate savings and investment policy. Firms with greater exposure to securities litigation hold significantly more cash in anticipation of future settlements and other related costs. The result is due to firms accumulating cash in anticipation of lawsuits and not a consequence of plaintiffs targeting firms with high cash levels. The market value of cash is lower for firms exposed to litigation risk. Corporate investment decisions are also affected by litigation risk, as firms reduce capital expenditures in response. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns and possible spurious temporal effects.

We study the impact of parameter uncertainty on the expected utility of a multiperiod investor subject to quadratic transaction costs. We characterize the utility loss associated with ignoring parameter uncertainty, and show that it is equal to the product between the single-period utility loss and another term that captures the effects of the multiperiod mean-variance utility and transaction cost losses. To mitigate the impact of parameter uncertainty, we propose two multiperiod shrinkage portfolios and demonstrate with simulated and empirical data sets that they substantially outperform portfolios that ignore parameter uncertainty, transaction costs, or both.

The consensus view of the influential economist John Maynard Keynes is that he was a stellar investor. We provide an extensive quantitative appraisal of his performance over a quarter century and present detailed analysis of his archived trading records. His top-down approach initially generated disappointing returns with no evidence of any market-timing ability. However, from the early 1930s his performance improved as he evolved into a bottom-up stock picker with substantial active risk and pronounced size and value tilts. Our reconstruction of Keynes’s stock trading provides a unique record of realized performance and sheds light on how equity investing developed historically.

This article provides evidence that equity returns lead credit protection returns at daily and weekly frequencies, whereas credit protection returns do not lead equity returns. Our results indicate that informed traders are primarily active in the equity market rather than the credit default swap (CDS) market. These findings are consistent with standard theories of market selection by informed traders in which market selection is determined partially by transaction costs. We also find that credit protection returns respond more quickly during salient news events (earnings announcements) compared to days with similar equity returns and turnover. This evidence provides support for explanations related to investor inattention.

How does trust affect business contracting at the firm level? We analyze the case of foreign high-tech companies investing in China, where the risk of expropriation of their intellectual property is high. We find that firms mitigate this type of risk by taking local trustworthiness into account when making investment decisions. Firms prefer to invest in regions where local partners and employees are considered more trustworthy; they are also more likely to establish joint ventures and to make greater research and development investments. We employ instrumental variable regressions and dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimators to alleviate endogeneity concerns and control for time-invariant heterogeneity.

This paper examines trading patterns and market integration using laboratory asset markets. Our markets are designed to approximately correspond to the trading day for stocks cross-listed in markets in Europe and North America. Some of our markets feature timing restrictions so that participants cannot trade across markets except during a fully integrated overlap period. Comparison of markets with and without timing restrictions shows that restrictions reduce trading activity and shift transactions to the overlap period. When asset values are extreme, price discovery can be impeded when trading restrictions exist. The measurement of liquidity suggests that trading restrictions increase overall spreads.

I test the Duffie, Gârleanu, and Pedersen hypothesis that security prices incorporate expected future securities lending income. To determine whether institutional investors anticipate gains from future lending of securities, I examine their trading behavior around loan-fee increases. The evidence suggests that institutions buy shares in response to an increase in lending fees, and that this could explain the premium associated with high-lending-fee stocks. Expected future lending income affects stock prices, although the effect seems to be attenuated by the negative information that arises from short selling.

The suitability of complex financial products for household investors is an important issue in light of consumer financial protection. The U.S. Dodd–Frank Act, for instance, mandates that distributors check suitability when selling structured products to retail investors. However, little empirical evidence exists on such transactions. Using data from Hong Kong, we find that investors purchase 8% more structured products, on average, when the suitability is not checked. The effect of suitability checks is more pronounced for less financially literate investors. Moreover, investors tend to buy products with lower risk-adjusted returns when product suitability is not checked.

This study investigates whether the existence or strength of any misreaction in the options market is affected by investor sophistication and investor sentiment. Based on a unique data set of the complete history of all transactions in the Taiwan options market, we find that individual investors exhibit significant misreaction to information and that this misreaction becomes stronger during periods of high investor sentiment. In addition, more active or aggressive individual investors always exhibit misreaction and do not learn from their past mistakes. Our empirical results are robust to alternative measures of investor sentiment and definitions of long- and short-term horizons.