In principle, credit rating agencies are supposed to be impartial observers that bridge the gap between private information of issuers and the information available to the wider pool of investors. However, since the 1970s, rating agencies have relied on an issuer-pay model, creating a conflict...

Using data from 1983 to 2010, we propose a new fear measure for Treasury markets, akin to the VIX for equities, labeled TIV. We show that TIV explains one third of the time variation in fund- ing liquidity and that the spread between the VIX and TIV captures flight to quality. We then construct...

We estimate structurally a model of the term structure of interest rates that is consistent with no arbitrage but allows for demand pressures. The term structure in our model is determined through the interaction of risk-averse arbitrageurs and preferred-habitat investors with preferences for...

We propose a clientele-based model of the yield curve and optimal maturity structure of government debt. Clienteles are generations of agents at different life cycle stages in an overlapping-generations economy. An optimal maturity structure exists in the absence of distortionary taxes and...

This paper provides an alternative real options framework to assess how firms strategic interaction under imperfect competition a¤ects the industrial dynamics of investment, concentration, and expected returns. When firms have similar production technologies, the cross sectional variation in...

Despite much work on hedging in incomplete markets, the literature still lacks tractable dynamic hedges in plausible environments. In this article, we provide a simple solution to this problem in a general incomplete-market economy in which a hedger, guided by the traditional minimum-variance...

We show that the level of interest rates determines the magnitude of mispricing at the turn of the tax year, as investors face the trade-o¤ between selling a temporarily depressed stock this year and selling next year, but delaying tax implications by one year. Interest rates do explain the...

This paper estimates the effect of corporate governance provisions on shareholder value and long-term outcomes in S&P1500 firms. We apply a regression discontinuity design to shareholder votes on governance proposals in annual meetings. A close-call vote around the majority threshold is akin to...

In this paper I propose a regime-switching approach to explain why the U.S. nominal yield curve on average has been steeper since the mid-1980s than during the Great Inflation of the 1970s. I show that, once the possibility of regime switches in the short-rate process is incorporated into...

We use a comparative approach to study the incentives provided by dierent types of compensation contracts, and their valuation by risk averse managers, in a fairly general setting. We show that concave contracts tend to provide more incentives to risk averse managers, while convex contracts tend...