Hedge funds significantly reduced their equity holdings during the recent financial crisis. In 2008Q3-Q4, hedge funds sold about 29% of their aggregate portfolio. Redemptions and margin calls were the primary drivers of selloffs. Consistent with forced deleveraging, the selloffs took place in...

Using only daily data on bond and stock returns, we identify and characterize flight to safety (FTS) episodes for 23 countries. On average, FTS days comprise less than 3% of the sample, and bond returns exceed equity returns by 2.5 to 4%. The majority of FTS events are country-specific not...

During the COVID-19 market crash, U.S. stocks with higher institutional ownership -- in particular, those held more by active, short-term, and more exposed institutions -- performed worse. Portfolio changes through the first quarter of 2020 reveal that institutional investors prioritized...

We develop a new method that detects jumps nonparametrically in financial time series and significantly outperforms the current benchmark on simulated data. We use a long short- term memory (LSTM) neural network that is trained on labelled data generated by a process that experiences both jumps...

Funds with an environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) mandate have been growing rapidly in recent years and received inflows also during periods of market turmoil, such as March 2020, in contrast to their non-ESG peers. This paper investigates whether investors in ESG funds react...

Using evidence from the EU emissions trading system, we collect verified emissions of close to 4000 highly polluting and mostly non-listed firms responsible for 26% of EU's emissions. Over the period 2013-2019, we find a non-linear relationship between leverage and emissions. A firm with higher...

Using count-data techniques, this paper studies the determinants of currency choice in the issuance of foreign-currency-denominated bonds. In particular, we investigate whether bond issuers choose their issuance currency in order to exploit the borrowing-cost savings associated with deviations...

Using data for the 1978-2008 period, this study presents evidence for cointegration between securitized (NAREIT) and direct (NCREIF) total return indices. Cointegration between the indices indicates that REITs and direct real estate are substitutable in the portfolio of a long-horizon...