Releases of key macroeconomic indicators are closely watched by financial markets. We investigate the role of expectation dispersion and economic uncertainty for the stock-market reaction to indicator releases. We find that the strength of the financial market response to news decreases with the...

The term structure of equity returns is downward-sloping: stocks with high cash flow duration earn 1.10% per month lower returns than short-duration stocks in the cross section. I create a measure of cash flow duration at the firm level using balance sheet data to show this novel fact. Factor...

We analyze stock market reactions to announcements of political appointments from the private sector and corporate appointments of former government officials. Using unique data on corporate affiliations and announcements of all Senate-confirmed U.S. Defense Department appointees of six...

We estimate the value of the revolving door for firm executives and directors joining the cabinets of the Trump I and Biden administrations. By combining intraday stock and prediction market data, we take the degree of anticipation of political appointments into account and we offer estimates...

This paper uses R/S analysis and fractional integration techniques to examine the persistence of two sets of 12 ESG and conventional stock price indices from the MSCI database over the period 2007-2020 for a large number of both developed and emerging markets. Both sets of results imply that...

The eurozone has a single short-term nominal interest rate, but monetary policy conditions measured by real short-term interest rates varied substantially across countries in the period 2003 - 2010. We use this cross-country variation in the (local) tightness of monetary policy to examine its...

Using a new daily dataset for all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange between 1905 and 1910, we study the impact of information asymmetry during the liquidity freeze and market run of October 1907 - one of the most severe financial crises of the 20th century. We estimate that the market...

This paper investigates the magnitude and the duration of the effect of a terrorist attack on stock market indices. We investigate the impact of New York (2001), Madrid (2004), London (2005), Boston (2013), Paris (2015), Brussels (2016), Nice (2016) and Berlin(2016) on the stock indices of the...

This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on stock returns, CDS and economic activity in the US and the five European countries (the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain) which have been most affected. The sample period covers the dates from the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in...