We show that Treasury security prices in the secondary market decrease significantly before auctions and recover shortly after. Hence, Treasury security prices tend to be lower on auction days, implying a large issuance cost for the Treasury Department, which is estimated to be 9-18 basis points...

This paper examines the role of search frictions in convertible bond pricing. Using a sample of 533 Rule 144-A issues for the years 1997-2007, we examine two channels through which search frictions might impact initial pricing: the ease of attracting initial investors and expected after-market...

This paper quantifies the scale and scope of the commercial real estate mortgage bond market in the period surrounding the 1920s in an attempt to better understand the role of retail mortgage debt in early urban development. In particular, this paper quantifies the size of the market, identifies...

This paper investigates the impact of equity markets and top incomes on art prices. Using a long-term art market index that incorporates information on repeated sales since the eighteenth century, we demonstrate that both same-year and lagged equity market returns have a significant impact on...

This paper examines the potential impact of capital supply on security issuance. We focus on the role of convertible bond arbitrageurs as suppliers of capital to issuers of convertible bonds. We estimate a simultaneous equations model of demand and supply of convertible bond capital, linking the...

There have been a number of recent papers arguing that there has been considerable convergence in macro research and to the good. This paper considers the question whether what has been converged to is good. Has progress been made in understanding how the macro economy works?

Although the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) received nearly unanimous congressional support, only a few years thereafter its wisdom was increasingly questioned and its supporters had to stave off attempts to recraft the legislation. The financial crisis of 2008 has sidelined efforts...

Despite portfolio construction based on expected utility theory and Markowitz mean-variance optimization having been the foundation of financial economic theory for more than 50 years, its practical application by financial advisors has been limited. Particularly troubling are the lack of a...

The Panic of 2007-2008 was a run on the sale and repurchase market (the “repo†market), which is a very large, short-term market that provides financing for a wide range of securitization activities and financial institutions. Repo transactions are collateralized, frequently with...

This paper examines whether recessions and booms are forecastable under the assumption that equity prices, housing prices, import prices, exports, and random shocks are not. Each of the 214 eight-quarter periods within the overall 1954:1-2009:1 period is examined regarding predictions of output...