In this article, we show that only distressed firms not identified as distressed by creditors are able to transfer wealth from creditors to shareholders. Using the number of years to future bankruptcy as a proxy for genuine distress and measures based on observable firm characteristics as...

We consider bankruptcy announcements of large financial institutions in the US and examine their impact on an international sample of 66 stock market indices. Employing an event-study methodology, we find that stock markets exhibit strong adverse reaction in the aftermath of such announcements....

Research shows that most ventures fail, yet it has devoted limited attention to the consequences of entrepreneurs’ past failure for investors' decisions. Our motivating insight is that failure can be due to bad luck, lack of skill or both. Therefore, failure conveys ambiguous information...

Research shows that most ventures fail, yet it has devoted limited attention to the consequences of entrepreneurs' past failure for investors' decisions. Our motivating insight is that failure can be due to bad luck, lack of skill or both. Therefore, failure conveys ambiguous information about...

The unpredictability of returns counts as a stylized fact of financial markets. To reproduce this fact, modelers usually implement noise terms - a method with several downsides. Above all, systematic patterns are not eliminated but merely blurred. The present article introduces a model in which...

We propose a statistical model of differences in beliefs in which heterogeneous investors are represented as different machine learning model specifications. Each investor forms return forecasts from their own specific model using data inputs that are available to all investors. We measure...

This paper examines local bias in the context of venture capital (VC) investments. Based on a sample of US VC investments between 1980 and June 2009, we find more reputable VCs (older, larger, more experienced, and with stronger IPO track record) and VCs with broader networks exhibit less local...

Consistent with the incentive implication of inside debt, I show that active equity mutual funds invest less in companies whose CEOs are awarded with higher debt-like compensation, whereas corporate bond mutual funds invest more in such companies. This finding persists after accounting for...

Using close to 800,000 transactions by 66,000 households in the United States and close to 2,000,000 transactions by 303,000 households in Finland, this paper shows that individual investors with longer holding periods choose to hold less liquid stocks in their portfolios, consistent with Amihud...