We provide a critical theoretical and empirical analysis that suggests a key driver of fiscal effects on equity markets is the Federal Reserve. For the Post-1980 era, tax cuts lead to higher cash flow news and higher discount rates. The discount rate news tends to dominate such that tax cuts are...

How fiscal policy impacts equity and bond returns is an open question. Unlike previous studies, we address this issue in a way that decomposes current returns into news about cash flows and news about discount rates. Moreover, we use narrative methods to identify plausibly exogenous shocks to...

Assessment of risk tolerance is fundamental to proper asset allocation within a household portfolio. It is also a frequently misunderstood concept and difficult to measure practically. We discuss the relationship between risk aversion and portfolio recommendations based on an expected utility...

We study a set of trading restrictions imposed by Robinhood and other retail-oriented broker-dealers in 38 stocks, including GameStop. Restrictions limit equity and/or options positions. Stock price effects are large, with CARs averaging -13.54% within two hours after a stock’s first trading...

Delegating management of financial decisions may involve both direct and agency costs. We hypothesize that contracting differences between financial planners and brokers may lead to differences in life insurance adequacy. Using nationally representative data, we estimate the impact of the use of...

By 2012, all European Union countries began requiring the disclosure of large short positions. This regime change reduced short interest, bid-ask spreads, and the informativeness of prices. After specific disclosures, short-run abnormal returns are insignificantly negative, but 90-day cumulative...

We explore the determinants of equity price risk of non-financial corporations. Operating and asset characteristics are by far the most important determinants of risk. For the median firm, financial risk accounts for only 15% of observed stock price volatility. Furthermore, financial risk has...

We examine the performance of 2,790 private equity (PE) funds incepted during 1979-2008 using Stochastic Discount Factors (SDFs) implied by the two leading consumption-based asset pricing models (CBAPMs) — external habit and long-run risks — as their assumptions appear consistent with...

Short-term redemption fees may prevent investors from frequently trading in and out of mutual funds, which results in an implicit wealth transfer from long- to short-term fund investors. This paper studies determinants and implications of short-term redemption fees. We find that the probability...