This study sheds new light on the question of whether or not sentiment surveys, and the expectations derived from them, are relevant to forecasting economic growth and stock returns, and whether they contain information that is orthogonal to macroeconomic and financial data. I examine 16...

This paper investigates how firm debt disproportionately impacted the stock returns of firms who were highly exposed to the economic consequences of social distancing. Specifically, I use a difference-in-difference design to causally identify the impact that higher levels of firm debt had for...

We examine the cross-section of international equity risk premia with machine learning methods. We identify, classify, and calculate 88 market characteristics and use them to forecast country returns with various machine learning techniques. While all algorithms produce substantial economic...

By examining data on the gold forward offered rate (GOFO) and lease rates over the period 1996- 2009, we conclude that the convenience yield of gold is better approximated by the lease rate than the interest-adjusted spread of Fama amp; French (1983). Using the latter quantity, we study the...

The slope coefficient estimator in predictive regressions for stock returns is biased by a lagged stochastic regressor. There is also a spurious regression if the underlying expected return is highly persistent. This paper studies how the interactions between the two biases affect inferences...

We apply machine learning techniques and use stock characteristics to predict the cross-section of stock returns in 33 international markets. We conduct a stringent out-of-sample test to examine concerns about overfitting: the models are trained with past U.S. data and used to predict...

We examine return predictability with machine learning in 46 international stock markets. We calculate 148 stock characteristics and use them to feed a repertoire of different models. The algorithms extract predictability mainly from simple, yet popular, factor types—such as momentum,...

The relationship between risk and expected returns has been investigated extensively in the financial economics literature. Theoretical models generally predict a positive relation between the two. Nevertheless, the empirical findings so far have been inconclusive. Using a generalization of the...

We investigate whether value-relevant foreign information only gradually dilutes into stock prices of multinational firms worldwide. Using an international sample of firms from 22 developed countries, we find that a portfolio strategy based on firms' foreign sales information yields future...