We investigate the effect of cross-border regulatory cooperation on global mutual fund portfolio allocations, focusing on the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU), a non-binding information sharing arrangement between global securities regulators. Connections between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other foreign regulators increase the SEC’s ability to pursue US cross-listed firms. We find that foreign investment in US-cross- listed firms domiciled in the signatory country increases significantly relative to non-cross-listed firms from that country.
We examine whether changes to corporate governance arising from board reforms affect corporate tax behavior. While the relation between corporate governance and tax behavior has been the subject of intense interest in the literature, prior research has been hampered by a lack of exogenous variation.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are an important mechanism through which new technology is adopted by firms. We document patterns of labor reallocation and wage changes following M&As, consistent with the adoption of technology. Specifically, we show target establishments invest more in technology, become less routine task intensive, employ a greater share of high technology workers, and pay more unequal wages.
Governments often subsidize startups with the goal of spurring entrepreneurship using tax incentives. Exploiting the staggered implementation of angel investor tax credits in 31 U.S. states from 1988 to 2018, we find that these programs increase the number of angel investments and average investment size.
Across the globe, every workday people commute an average of 38 minutes each way, yet surprisingly little research has examined the implications of this daily routine for work-related outcomes. Integrating theories of boundary work, self-control, and work-family conflict, we propose that the commute to work serves as a liminal role transition between home and work roles, prompting employees to engage in boundary management strategies.
Kenan Institute Executive Director and Institute for Private Capital Research Director Greg Brown breaks down a recent white paper by Antii Ilmanen, Swati Chandra, and Nicholas McQuinn of AQR, which examines expected returns for Private Equity (PE). The paper’s authors claim that, when properly risk-adjusted, the returns on private equity are not attractive relative to public market stocks. The conclusion on lower returns is surprising to many because it’s at odds with what is now the well-documented outperformance of PE over the last few decades.
Firms' payout decisions respond to expected returns: everything else equal, firms invest less and pay out more when their cost of capital increases. Given investors' demand for firm payout, market clearing implies that the dynamics of productivity and payout demand fully determine equilibrium asset prices and returns. We use this logic to propose a payout-based asset pricing framework and we illustrate the analogy between our approach and consumption-based asset pricing in a simple two-period model. Then, we introduce a quantitative payout-based asset pricing model and calibrate the productivity and payout demand processes to match aggregate U.S. corporate output and payout empirical moments. We find that model-implied payout yields and firm returns go a long way in reproducing key attributes of their empirical counterparts.
We propose a novel method of estimating default probabilities using equity option data. The resulting default probabilities are highly correlated with estimates of default probabilities extracted from CDS spreads, which assume constant recovery rates. Additionally, the option implied default probabilities are higher in bad economic times and for firms with poorer credit ratings and financial positions.
We explore the determinants of equity price risk of nonfinancial corporations. Operating and asset characteristics are by far the most important determinants of risk. For the median firm, financial risk accounts for only 15% of observed stock price volatility. Furthermore, financial risk has declined over the last 3 decades, indicating that any upward trend in equity volatility was driven entirely by economic risk factors. This explains why financial distress (as opposed to economic distress) was surprisingly uncommon in the nonfinancial sector during the 2007–2009 crisis even as measures of equity volatility reached unprecedented highs.
Individuals tend to give losses approximately 2-fold the weight that they give gains. Such approximations of loss aversion (LA) are almost always measured in the stimulus domain of money, rather than objects or pictures. Recent work on preference-based decision-making with a schedule-less keypress task (relative preference theory, RPT) has provided a mathematical formulation for LA similar to that in prospect theory (PT), but makes no parametric assumptions in the computation of LA, uses a variable tied to communication theory (i.e., the Shannon entropy or information), and works readily with non-monetary stimuli.
Companies today are looking to diversify their workforce – and one way in which they’re attracting more women is by providing generous paid maternity leave. In “The Distribution of Non-Wage Benefits: Maternity Benefits and Gender Diversity,” researcher Paige Ouimet and colleagues discovered that firms in industries or geographies where female talent is relatively scarce are more likely to provide liberal maternity benefits, and that such benefits enhance the value of those firms. In contrast, in areas where maternity benefits have become mandated by law, there is a correlated decrease in the stock price of companies that had offered generous benefits prior to the law’s adoption.
The data-generating process of productivity growth includes both trend and business-cycle shocks, generating many counterfactuals for prices under full-information. In practice, agents cannot immediately distinguish between the two shocks, leading to "rational confusion": each shock inherits properties of its counterpart.
Private equity investments have risen dramatically during the last two decades, not only in developed countries but in developing economies as well. Several studies have found evidence of improvement in firm performance following a private equity (PE) transaction, but surprisingly little is known about the implications of PE transactions for the economy – particularly the global economy. Kenan Institute Executive Director Greg Brown shares takeaways on his research with George Mason University Assistant Professor of Finance Serdar Aldatmaz.
Kenan Institute Director of Research Christian Lundblad elaborates on the recent discussion around Modern Monetary Theory. This intellectual approach takes an unorthodox view of the nature of government taxation and expenditure, arguing (among other things) that a sovereign nation that can spend, tax and borrow in its own currency faces very different constraints than often modeled in traditional economics textbooks.
A country’s national income broadly depends on the quantity and quality of workers and capital. But how well these factors are managed within and between firms may be a key determinant of a country’s productivity and its GDP.
Applied financial econometrics subjects are featured in this second volume, with papers that survey important research even as they make unique empirical contributions to the literature. These subjects are familiar: portfolio choice, trading volume, the risk-return tradeoff, option pricing, bond yields, and the management, supervision, and measurement of extreme and infrequent risks.
“When are you going to change this Children’s Safe Drinking Water program and make money for your company? Surely Procter & Gamble wants you to profit on the water purification technology—you can’t sustain your program as a non-profit!” Greg Allgood sighed internally at this question, as it seemed to surface frequently despite the continued and rapid growth of the Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) program at P&G. Allgood (Director of the CSDW program) was not actually frustrated with the query, as he had an easy answer ready. Rather, he wished that people could more easily see how his team’s non-profit work was adding greater value to the $80 billion dollar company than a for-profit sales model ever could. Procter & Gamble is a data-driven company, and after 24 years as a “Proctoid” he knew this better than anyone. Greg had significant qualitative and some quantitative information to support the idea that, in some cases, a non-profit business model could do much more for the bottom line than could a for-profit model. However, he knew that he needed to do even more to clarify this point for others.
In the electronics industry and beyond, original design manufacturers (ODMs) provide a full spectrum of services, ranging from design and development to manufacturing, to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Lundblad will be a bridge between the Kenan-Flager Business School and the institute and promote the link between research and academics. Engaging doctoral students in research being done at the Kenan Institute will foster improved academics as these students take the latest research and incorporate it into their own teaching.
Nuclear power’s star has dimmed in recent years, diminished by the rise of solar, wind and natural gas as well as the 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant. Now many nations, suddenly in need of a secure, clean energy source, have plans to reopen or extend the lives of their existing facilities.