We analyze cross-sectional and time series information from forty-seven equity markets around the world, to consider whether short-sales restrictions affect the efficiency of the market, and the distributional characteristics of returns to individual stocks and market indices. Using the approach...

There are situations in which dispersed creditors (e.g., public creditors) have more difficulties and higher costs when collecting their claims in financial distress than concentrated creditors (e.g., banks). Under this assumption, our model predicts that measures of debt concentration relate...

This paper argues that the U.S. bankruptcy reform of 2005 played an important role in the mortgage crisis and the current recession. When debtors file for bankruptcy, credit card debt and other types of debt are discharged--thus loosening debtors' budget constraints. Homeowners in financial...

This paper examines how filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 helps financially distressed debtors save their homes. We develop a model of debtors' decisions to default on their mortgages and file for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 and evaluate the model using new data on Chapter 13 bankruptcy...

Saunders (1993) and Hirshleifer and Shumway (2001) document the effect of weather on stock returns. The proposed explanation in both papers is that investor mood affects cognitive processes and trading decisions. In this paper, we use a database of individual investor accounts to examine the...

The covariance of asset returns with economic states of the world is a fundamental input to asset pricing models. Using a semi-annual survey of forecasts by a panel of U.S. economists over more than 70 years, we infer forecaster beliefs about covariance between the S&P index and macro-economic...

This paper tests the retrieved context model of Wachter and Kahana (2019) using a long-term panel of economic forecasts by participants in the Livingston Survey. Events in historical time contribute additional explanatory power to a relative time series model. Historical precedents for current...

Due to imperfect transparency and costly auditing, trust is an essential component of financial intermediation. In this paper we study a sample of 444 due diligence (DD) reports from a major hedge fund DD firm. A routine feature of due diligence is an assessment of integrity. We find that...

It is now well known that the Sharpe ratio and other related reward-to-risk measures may be manipulated with option-like strategies. In this paper we derive the general conditions for achieving the maximum expected Sharpe ratio. We derive static rules for achieving the maximum Sharpe ratio with...

Real and private-value assets--defined here as the sum of real estate, infrastructure, collectibles, and non-corporate business equity--is an investment class worth an estimated $85 trillion in the U.S. alone. Furthermore, private values can affect pricing in many other financial markets, such...