This paper theoretically and empirically examines the effect of product market competition on the relation between real estate investments and stock returns. By limiting operating flexibility in the event of negative demand shocks, real estate assets are found to increase firm risk. This study...

The continuing volatility in equity markets following the global financial crisis has led the focus of the global investment community towards low volatility stocks. This pursuit of low risk investments has drawn attention of the investor community towards new, alternative investments avenues...

This paper studies how expected returns interact with product market competition. The model predicts that (i) competition erodes markups, such that firms are more exposed to systematic risk; (ii) the threat of entry by new firms lowers exposure to systematic risk of incumbents; and (iii) higher...

This paper theoretically investigates the effect of uncertainty about future investment on expected stock returns. Based on a real options framework, we incorporate the learning-by-doing effect to analyze the irreversible investment problem. In our investment decision framework, the timing of...

Stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility perform poorly relative to low idiosyncratic volatility stocks. We offer a novel explanation of this anomaly based on real options, which is consistent with earlier findings on idiosyncratic volatility (the positive contemporaneous relation between...

This paper studies the relationship between asset growth and idiosyncratic stock return volatility. Empirically, in the cross-section, firms' idiosyncratic return volatility has a V-shaped relationship with their asset growth rate. In the time series, dispersion across firms in asset growth...

This paper surveys the theoretical literature investigating the effect of firms' investment flexibility on the cross-section of expected stock returns. Real options analysis derives firms' value-maximizing investment policies as functions of exogenous fundamental drivers of profitability and...

We examine whether cross-firm return predictability is associated with accounting quality (AQ), and find that stock returns of good AQ firms significantly positively predict one-month-ahead stock returns to industry- and size- matched poor AQ firms. In testing a delayed-information-processing...

In fundamental analysis, increases (decreases) in the ratio of selling, general and administrative (SG&A) costs to sales (SG&A ratio) are perceived as negative (positive) signals regarding future firm performance. However, this interpretation focuses on the overall change in the SG&A ratio and...

In this paper, I show a generalization of the negative relation of traditional accruals and percent accruals with future returns in 11 of 16 European countries. Positive abnormal returns from hedge portfolios on both accrual measures summarize the economic significance of this generalization....