Processing qualitative information about a firm's product market competition matters for fund performance. I find that fund managers with a better understanding of a firm's market power exhibit a superior risk-adjusted performance. Managers who overweight companies with the fewest competitors...

We argue that buyout waves form in response to fluctuations in aggregate discount rates. In our model, discount rates alter the present value of cash flow improvements and the illiquidity premium demanded by buyout investors. We confirm our predictions empirically. Overall deal activity varies...

Mutual fund families are increasingly assigning traders to manage corporate bond mutual funds. Using this setting to study the role of traders in investment management, we document that trader managers identify and exploit short-term trading opportunities at lower transaction costs. These skills...

We analyze the impact of market frictions on trading volume and liquidity premia for finite maturity assets when investors differ in their investment horizons. In equilibrium, illiquidity spills over from short-term to long-term assets and trading concentrates on assets of intermediate maturity....

We analyze the impact of market frictions on trading volume and liquidity premia of finite maturity assets when investors differ in their investment horizons. In equilibrium, short-horizon investors only invest in short-term assets and illiquidity spills over from short-term to long-term...

This paper compares several investment strategies designed to exploit the low-beta anomaly. Although the notion of buying low-beta stocks and selling high-beta stocks is natural, a choice is necessary with respect to the relative weighting of high-beta stocks and low-beta stocks in the...

We analyze the impact of market frictions on trading volume and liquidity premia of finite maturity assets when investors differ in their trading needs. Our equilibrium model generates a clientele effect (frequently trading investors only hold short-term assets) and predicts i) a hump-shaped...

This paper investigates whether multivariate crash risk (MCRASH), defined as exposure to extreme realizations of multiple systematic factors, is priced in the cross-section of expected stock returns. We derive an extended linear model with a positive premium for MCRASH and we empirically confirm...

We analyze the dispersion of month-end prices simultaneously placed on identical corporate bonds by different US mutual fund managers before and after initiations of TRACE and introductions of issuers into Markit's CDS database. Disseminated bonds show large and statistically significant...

Diversification benefits depend on the correlation between assets. Unfortunately, asset correlation increases when it is most needed. We examine bond correlation using a broad sample of US corporate bonds. We find bond correlation to be higher during the financial crisis in 2008. Increased bond...