Does one make money trading on the deviations between observed bond prices and values proposed by bond-pricing models? We extend Sercu and Wu (1997)'s work to more models and more data, but we especially refine the methodology. In particular, we provide a normal-return benchmark that markedly...

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...

Despite of the intuitive idea that corporate governance and transparency are crucial for a country's international appeal, foreign portfolio investors appear to care first and foremost about transparency, predictability and honesty in governments. This is, at least, what our analysis of...

We generalize the Cooper and Kaplanis (1994) methodology for estimating the costs that could reconcile international portfolio holdings with CAPM predictions. First, we can simultaneously estimate inward and outward investment costs and even interactions between home and host country. Second,...

Prior work variously ascribes the forward puzzle the low slope in the Fama (1984) regression of the exchange rate change on the forward premium to various model misspecifications or statistical problems with non-stationary forward premia, but no single theory fully succeeds in explaining the...

This paper reviews the recent literature on equity home bias - the empirical finding that people over invest in domestic stocks relative to the theoretically optimal investment portfolio. We cover different home bias measures and we illustrate the extent and the evolution of equity home bias...

The case for one share/one vote regulation is quite robust to the way the takeover game is played, provided one goes all the way and allows not just toeholds or multiple bids and revisions but also bargaining. But the alternative rule that exclusion should never harm the non-voting shares, or...

Two regression coefficients often used in Finance, the Scholes-Williams (1977) quasi-multiperiod thin-trading beta and the Hansen-Hodrick (1980) overlapping-periods regression coefficient, can both be written as instrumental-variables estimators. Competitors are Dimson's beta and the...

Generalizing Cooper-Kaplanis (), we estimate implied costs that reconcile international portfolios with InCAPM predictions. Costs depend on home- and host-country characteristics and on interactions; we estimate risk tolerance rather than pre-specifying it; and we control for currency risk,...