Kothari, Lewellen and Warner (2006) document that in the U.S. market aggregate earnings changes are negatively related to contemporaneous market returns. This is puzzling given the well-documented evidence that firm-level earnings changes are positively related to stock returns. In this study we...

Using a large sample of firms from 43 markets, we find significant time-series variations in firms’ leverage ratios around the world. Industry median leverage ratios and aggregate leverage ratios also change substantially over time. Relative to actual leverage ratios, target leverage ratios...