I examine the ability of equity market illiquidity to predict Australian macroeconomic variables, between 1976 and 2010. In contrast to existing, U.S.-based, studies, I find that stock market illiquidity does not, on average, have much predictive power over economic growth. Consistent with the...

Empirical analysis of financial data such as the daily, weekly or monthly prices of assets such as bonds, stocks, currencies and commodities have shown that asset prices approximately follow a martingale process, but the distribution of asset returns tend to be fat-tailed. This paper examines...

Recent theory relates expected returns and covariant risk to the investment decisions of a firm. The irreversible nature of physical assets-in-place results in them being riskier than growth options across certain stages of the business cycle. Using the Australian accounting environment, this...

We find that a composite implied cost of capital (ICC) estimate - based on the earnings forecasts generated by cross-sectional models is highly correlated with future realised returns in both portfolio- and regression-based tests. By contrast, we find very little evidence for an association with...

This paper examines the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the performance of Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (A-REITs). Rolling regressions are estimated to establish the risk-adjusted performance of low, average, and high-rated CSR A-REIT portfolios over time. We...

Despite considerable empirical evidence reporting a negative relationship between net share issuance and subsequent returns, it remains unresolved whether this anomaly is explained by risk or investor irrationality. This paper examines the net share issuance anomaly using seasoned equity...

"Smart beta" investing is an alternative to the traditional active and passive approaches to funds management, whereby investors adopt a systematic method that provides exposure to factors that are argued to be related with expected returns at low cost. Therefore, the question of how smart is...

In this paper we investigate if directors of Australian companies earn persistent profits on their reported trades, if these abnormal profits are significant enough to be mimicked by outsiders, and if these insider trades have an effect on returns of other investors. We find that insiders take...