We build an equilibrium model with commodity producers who are averse to future cash flow variability, and hedge using futures. Their hedging demand is met by risk-constrained speculators. Increases in producers' hedging demand (speculators' risk- capacity) increase hedging costs via...

We examine the impact on stock prices of a major upgrade to the New York Stock Exchange's trading environment. The upgrade was sequentially implemented across groups of stocks. The upgrade improved information dissemination on the trading floor and reduced the latency in reporting trades and...

Rational theories of the closed-end fund premium puzzle highlight fund share and asset illiquidity, managerial ability and compensation, and fees as important determinants of the premium. Several of these attributes are difficult to measure for mutual funds, and easier to measure for hedge...

We build a cross-sectional factor model for investors' direct stock holdings, by analogy with standard time-series factor models for stock returns. We estimate the model using data from almost 10 million retail accounts in the Indian stock market. We find that stock characteristics such as firm...

We build an empirical model to decompose delays in mortgage refinancing into time-dependent inaction (a low probability of responding to a refinancing incentive in a given quarter) and state- dependent inaction (a psychological addition to the financial cost of refinancing). We estimate the...

We scrape a comprehensive set of US firms’ privacy policies, and study them alongside firms' web data extraction behaviour. We find considerable and systematic variation in privacy policies along multiple dimensions including ease of access, length, readability, and clarity, both within and...

We discover a new currency strategy with highly desirable return and diversification properties, which uses the predictive capability of currency volatility risk premia for currency returns. The volatility risk premium -- the difference between expected realized volatility and model-free implied...