The value of pension promises already made by US state governments will grow to approximately $7.9 trillion in 15 years. We study investment strategies of state pension plans and estimate the distribution of future funding outcomes. We conservatively predict a 50% chance of aggregate...

We calculate the present value of state employee pension liabilities as of June 2009 using discount rates that reflect the risk of the payments from a taxpayer perspective. If benefits have the same default and recovery characteristics as state general obligation debt, the national total of...

A lot! Profitability subsumes all of "quality" investing, explaining both the performance of the strategies that industry markets and the factors that academics employ. It also has striking power pricing "defensive equity" strategies that overweight low-beta or low-volatility stocks....

Different aspects of liquidity impact the performance of short-run reversals in different ways, consistent with the predictions of microstructure models. Higher volatility is associated with faster, initially stronger reversals, while lower turnover is associated with more persistent, ultimately...

We propose a protocol for testing potential cross-sectional predictors of equity returns, and describe turn-key tools for implementing this protocol. These tools are not completely exhaustive, but identify the most important issues that arise in common tests of asset pricing strategies. They go...

Different aspects of liquidity impact the performance of short-run reversals in different ways, consistent with the predictions of microstructure models. Higher volatility is associated with faster, initially stronger reversals, while lower turnover is associated with more persistent, ultimately...