Skewness preference, the tendency to overweight the probability of extreme tail events, can affect managerial decision making. We find that Chinese listed firms managed by CEOs who experienced a largely unpredictable rare event, namely the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in...

We exploit cross-sectional variation in the predictable changes in asset volatility following corporate acquisitions to identify the effect of business risk on capital structure. We find that post-merger changes in leverage and cash holdings are strongly predicted by expected asset volatility...

This paper documents that policy uncertainty reduces future stock price crash risk. Our tests show that this negative relation is more pronounced among firms with more short-sale constraints, with no actively traded credit default swap contracts, or with higher firm-level political risks. The...

During the recent financial crisis, there was a dramatic spike, across all industries, in the volatility of individual firm share prices after adjustment for movements in the market as a whole. In this Article, we demonstrate that a similar spike has occurred with each major downturn in the...

Using a global dataset, we document that market-level climate vulnerability is positively associated with stock price crash risk of individual firms. We establish causality by using an instrumental variable analysis and difference-in-differences analysis. Furthermore, we show that an increase in...

Previous studies rarely discuss the effect of margin trading on future stock price crash risk, though margin trading is often blamed for destabilizing stock market. We propose three possible mechanisms through which margin trading may affect crash risk. Our empirical results show that neither...

This paper proposes Spillover Persistence as a measure for financial fragility. The volatility paradox predicts that fragility builds up when volatility is low, which challenges existing measures. Spillover Persistence tackles this challenge by exploring a novel dimension of systemic risk: loss...

Previous studies rarely discuss the effect of margin trading on future stock price crash risk, though margin trading is often blamed for destabilizing stock market. We propose three possible mechanisms through which margin trading may affect crash risk. Our empirical results show that neither...

We employ extreme value theory to identify stock price crashes, featuring low-probability events that produce large, firm-specific negative outliers in the conditional distribution. Traditional methods employ approximations under Gaussian assumptions and central moments. This is inherently...

Theory suggests that financing frictions can have significant implications for firms' equity volatility by shaping their exposure to economic risks. This paper provides evidence that an important determinant of higher equity volatility among R&D-intensive firms is fewer financing constraints on...