We analyze how the availability of internal funds affects a firm's investment. We show that under fairly standard assumptions, the relation is U-shaped: investment increases monotonically with internal funds if they are large but decreases if they are very low. We discuss the tradeoff that...

When market returns follow a long memory volatility process, standard approaches to estimating dynamic minimum variance hedge ratios (MVHRs) are misspecified. Simulation results and an application to the S&P 500 index document the magnitude of the misspecification that results from failure to...

We demonstrate analytically that cross-sectional variation in the effects of events, i.e., in true abnormal returns, necessarily produces event-induced variance increases, biasing popular tests for mean abnormal returns in short-horizon event studies. We show that unexplained cross-sectional...

We provide evidence of a link between firm dividend policy and stock market liquidity. In the cross section, owners of less (more) liquid common stock are more (less) likely to receive cash dividends. Predictions of the proportion of dividend payers based on 1963–1977 cross-sectional estimates...

Recent studies suggest that the underperformance of IPOs in the post-1970 sample may be a small sample effect or “Peso problem.” That is, IPO underperformance may result from observing too few star performers ex post than were expected ex ante. We develop a model of IPO performance that...

This paper generalizes and tightens Chen and Yeh's (2002) analytical upper bounds for American options under stochastic interest rates, stochastic volatility, and jumps, where American option prices are difficult to compute with accuracy. We first generalize Theorem 1 of Chen and Yeh (2002) and...

We examine the yield curve behavior and the relative performance of affine term structure models (ATSMs) using government bond yield data from Canada, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. We find strong predictability of forward rates for excess bond returns and reject the expectations...

I investigate what leads controlling families of publicly traded firms to sell their remaining ownership stake. The sale of a controlling stake is best explained in the context of theories of the firm related to optimal risk bearing, the separation of ownership and management expertise, the CEO...

This paper examines whether self-described market timing hedge funds have the ability to time the U.S. equity market. We propose a new measure for timing return and volatility jointly that relates fund returns to the squared Sharpe ratio of the market portfolio. Using a sample of 221 market...

Many investors confine their mutual fund holdings to a single fund family either for simplicity or through restrictions placed by their retirement savings plan. We find evidence that mutual fund returns are more closely correlated within than between fund families. As a result, restricting...