For the purpose of testing uncovered interest parity (UIP), rates of European currencies against the Mark offer a distinct advantage: the admissible band of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) induces statistically significant mean-reversion in weekly rates. Thus, unlike for freely floating rates,...

Previous research shows that bank information production mitigates asymmetric information problems. However, this literature has ignored the concern that firms with better growth prospects are more vulnerable to bank rent extraction. This paper points out that funding competition from new equity...

We propose a U-shaped relation between the relative weight of bank loans in total corporate debt and the firm's market-to-book ratio-a proxy for expected growth-which reconciles most existing theories. Using data on Japanese firms for 1983-97, we do find that, in the lower range of growth...

We test how keiretsu membership affects the Fama and French (1999) required IRR on value (or cost of capital) and the IRR on cost (or return on investment), 1974-95, of all listed non-financials in Japan. Rather than computing point estimates from aggregate data, we employ non-linear...

In implementing a variance-minimizing cross or delta hedge, the regression coefficient is often estimated using data from the past, but one could also use estimators that are suggested by the random-walk or unbiased-expectations models and require just a single price. We compare the performances...

CAPWe show that the results of a CAPM test are quite sensitive to the details of the test design. Especially crucial are the aspects related to the weight one gives to small, low-reputation stocks when constructing both the factor portfolios and the test or style portfolios whose returns are to...

Assuming that asset markets are complete and arbitrage-free, the exchange rate can be expressed in terms of observables in a multicountry, multigood general equilibrium economy. In contrast to existing models of the exchange rate, this general model allows for international differences in...