We document an inverse relation between stock-bond correlations and correlations of growth and inflation. We find that rising inflation uncertainty lowers stock prices but can either lower or raise nominal bond prices depending on whether inflation is counter- or procyclical. We show that the...

This paper considers changes in market comovement of merging US firms. Comparing the expected to the actual post merger comovement, we find that the post merger beta exhibits excess comovement with the acquiring firm. This suggests that the firm's comovement is at least partly determined by its...

This paper examines the quality of credit ratings assigned to banks in Europe and the United States by the three largest rating agencies over the past two decades. We interpret credit ratings as relative assessments of creditworthiness, and define a new ordinal metric of rating error based on...

Illiquidity measures appear to be related to monthly realized returns but do they impact long-run costs of capital (CoC) for firms? Using U.S. data, we find cross-sectional evidence that, controlling for market capitalization, the Amihud (2002) measure of illiquidity is negatively related to CoC...

Using simulation analysis and property-level data for the U.S., we compare performance metrics for portfolios containing varying proportions of gateway and non-gateway markets. Risk-adjusted performance is found to be similar across types of markets. Gateway markets have higher appreciation and...

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) slashed corporations' median effective tax rates from 31.7% to 20.8%. Nevertheless, 15% of firms experienced an increase. One fifth of firms recorded nonrecurring tax costs or benefits exceeding 3% of total assets. Proxies that existing studies employ to assess...

Using the first reported case of COVID-19 in a given US county as the event day, firms headquartered in an affected county experience an average 27 bps lower return in the 10-day post-event. This negative effect nearly doubles in magnitude for firms in counties with a higher infection rate (-50...

We analyze a novel data set of corporate contributions to ballot initiatives and referendums at the U.S. state level. Firms make significant contributions to ballot measures in favor of or against specific initiatives. Firms that contribute to successful (failed) direct initiated state...

This paper explores how affiliation to financial conglomerates affects asset managers' access to capital, trading behavior, and performance. Focusing on a sample of hedge funds, we find that financial-conglomerate-affiliated hedge funds (FCAHFs) have lower flow-performance sensitivity than other...