Previous studies show that firms with low inventory growth outperform firms with high inventory growth in the cross-section of publicly traded firms. In addition, inventory investment is volatile and procyclical, and inventory-to-sales is persistent and countercyclical. We embed an inventory...

I study the cross sectional variation of stock returns and technological progress using a dynamic equilibrium model with production. In the model, technological progress is endogenously driven by Ramp;D investment and is composed of two parts. One part is product innovation devoted to creating...

Motivated from investment-based asset pricing, we propose a new factor model that consists of the market factor, a size factor, an investment factor, and a return-on-equity factor. The new model [i] outperforms the Carhart (1997) four-factor model in pricing portfolios formed on earnings...

We evaluate the effects of the 2009 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) that provided intermediaries with sizeable financial incentives to renegotiate mortgages. HAMP increased intensity of renegotiations and prevented substantial number of foreclosures but reached just one-third of its...

We explore the relationship between sticky wages and risk. Like operating leverage, sticky wages are a source of risk for the firm. Firms, industries, regions, or times with especially high or rigid wages are especially risky. If wages are sticky, then wage growth should negatively forecast...

We analyze the litigation risk of Chinese firms listed in the U.S. We find that firm-specific characteristics from prior literature studying U.S. firms are not correlated with the litigation risk of U.S.-listed Chinese firms. However, our findings indicate that the method of listing is the only...

We study the impact of labor market frictions on asset prices. In the cross section of U.S. firms, a 10 percentage points increase in the firm's hiring rate is associated with a 1.5 percentage points decrease in the firm's annual risk premium. We propose an investment-based model with stochastic...

We propose a simple methodology to evaluate a large number of potential explanations for the negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and subsequent stock returns (the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle). We find that surprisingly many existing explanations explain less than 10% of the...