This paper investigates the role of punctuation in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market. Using data from Renrendai, one of the largest P2P lending platforms in the People's Republic of China, we investigate how the amount of punctuation used in loan descriptions influences the funding...

We investigate the relationship between a mutual fund's variation in factor exposures and its future performance. Using a dynamic state space version of Carhart (1997)'s four factor model to capture factor variation, we find that funds with volatile factor exposures underperform funds with...

We study the dynamics of fund manager ownership for a sample of U.S. equity mutual funds from 2005 to 2011. We find that ownership changes positively predict changes in future risk-adjusted fund performance. A one-standarddeviation increase in ownership predicts a 1.6 percent increase in alpha...

There is very little research on the topic of buy-side analyst performance, and that which does exist yields mixed results. We use a large sample from both the buy-side and the sell-side and report several new results. First, while the contemporaneous returns to portfolios based on sell-side...

Margin requirements are designed to control the default risk inherent to commitments undertaken by traders writing options. Much like similar institutions, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange first adopted a system based on the Standard Portfolio Analysis of Risk (SPAN), which sets required levels of...

The distress risk explanation of the size effect implies that payment for distress risk ought to occur in up market periods, not in down market periods where distress risk ought to depress the price of securities with such risk. We find that, given the influence of the market beta, the...

A Self-Exciting Threshold AutoRegressive (SETAR) model is applied to the Italian stock market volatility, to obtain volatility forecasts and Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimates. There is almost nothing dealing with Italian markets in the literature of Threshold models, which have never been used for...

In theory, investors choosing to invest only in socially responsible entities restrict their investment universe and should thus be penalized in a mean-variance framework. When computed, this penalty is usually viewed as valid for all socially responsible investors. This paper shows however that...

In theory, investors choosing to invest only in socially responsible entities restrict their investment universe and should thus be penalized in a mean-variance framework. When computed, this penalty is usually viewed as valid for all socially responsible investors. This paper shows however that...

Trillions of dollars are invested through index funds, exchange-traded funds, and other index derivatives. The benefits of index-linked investing are well-known, but the possible broader economic consequences are unstudied. I review research which suggests that index-linked investing is...