Using multiple discriminant analysis, we construct an index that measures firms' external financial constraints in an Australian setting. We form portfolios of firms based on our financial constraints index and find that financially constrained firms earn lower return than their unconstrained...

The liquidity/stock returns linkage was studied using data from the First Section, the Second Section, and the Mothers Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). In our overall tests, we found a significantly negative (positive) relationship between liquidity (illiquidity) proxies and returns....

We test whether default risk is related to equity returns using the Fama and MacBeth [Fama, E.F., MacBeth, J., 1973. Risk, return, and equilibrium: empirical tests. Journal of Political Economy 81, 607-636.] regression framework. The proxy we use for default risk is the default probability...

We investigate agency variation in credit quality assessment (Standard and Poor's vs. Moody's vs. Fitch) employing sovereign ratings data for 129 countries, spanning the period 1990-2006. While we find that the credit rating agencies often disagree about credit quality, it is usually confined to...

This paper investigates whether the risk-return relation varies, depending on changing market volatility and up/down market conditions. Three market regimes based on the level of conditional volatility of market returns are specified — "low", "neutral" and "high". The market model is extended...

In this article we develop a long-run systematic liquidity measure by augmenting the standard model with a lagged dependent variable. Our empirical application involves a large sample of Australian equities and we find pervasive evidence of long-run commonality in liquidity. We also find...

We examine the impact of style drift on the fund performance measures of selectivity and market timing. We find that style drift is positively related to selectivity performance, only when the market is in decline. Flow volatility is positively related to market timing ability during upmarket...

This article examines the link between macroeconomic variables and equity returns in Australia by testing conditional asset pricing models. We find that conditioning the Fama-French model with a series of macroeconomic variables does not considerably improve its performance. However, we do find...

In this article we extend the application of returns-based style analysis in order to gauge the performance of a sample of Australian multi-sector managed funds. Specifically, we apply both static and rolling window style analysis to develop customized performance benchmarks for each fund. These...