We provide a theoretical model to explain the procyclicality of hedge fund activism. In our model, hedge funds which compete to retain investor flows excessively increase the net leverage of target firms in order to deliver high short-term payouts and signal their ability. Such excessive...

This Paper shows that trade can occur in a market where all traders are rational and none of them is subject to exogenous shocks. We develop a model of delegated portfolio management that captures key features of the US mutual fund industry and we embed it into an asset-pricing set-up. Fund...

Do large investors increase the vulnerability of a country to speculative attacks in the foreign exchange markets? To address this issue, we build a model of currency crises where a single large investor and a continuum of small investors independently decide whether to attack a currency based...

In this paper we develop a simple theoretical model to analyze the impact of institutional herding on asset prices. A growing empirical literature has come to the intriguing conclusion that institutional herding positively predicts short-term returns but negatively predicts long-term returns. We...

What are the equilibrium features of a dynamic financial market where traders care about their reputation for ability? We modify a standard sequential trading model to study a financial market with career concerns. We show that this market cannot be informationally efficient: there is no...

Mutual funds are significant blockholders in many corporations. Concerns that funds vote in a pro-management manner to garner lucrative pensions contracts led the SEC to mandate the disclosure of proxy votes. We present a model of mutual fund voting in the presence of potential business ties. We...

How does the trading behaviour of institutional money managers affect stock prices? In this paper we document a robust relationship between the net trade patterns of institutional money managers and long term equity returns. Examining quarterly data on US institutional holdings from 1983 to...

We develop an incomplete contract model to analyse the enlargement strategy of a club. An applicant is characterized by his wealth and the degree of conformity with the club standard. The club gains only from a fully reformed new member, but reform is costly. The club chooses between early...

We use a broad range of contractual information to assess the empirical relevance of different financial theories of trade credit. The common feature of all financial theories is that suppliers have an advantage over other lenders in financing credit-constrained firms. While the reasons for the...

It is typically less profitable for an opportunistic borrower to divert inputs than to divert cash. Suppliers, therefore, may lend more liberally than banks. This simple argument is at the core of our contract theoretic model of trade credit in competitive markets. The model implies that trade...