We show that book-to-market, size, and momentum capture cross-sectional variation in exposures to a broad set of macroeconomic factors identified in the prior literature as potentially important for pricing equities. The factors considered include innovations in economic growth expectations,...

We combine the innovative approaches of Elliott, Komunjer, and Timmermann (2005) and Patton and Timmermann (2007) with a block bootstrap to analyze whether asymmetric loss functions can rationalize the S&P 500 return expectations of individual forecasters from the Livingston Surveys. Although...

Previous research on the impact of currency risk on stock returns has failed to find a significant role for foreign exchange rates. This paper addresses several explanations of this finding with a unique dataset of U.S. firms that acquire targets in other countries. The dataset allows estimation...

This paper investigates the information environment during and after a corporate break-up utilizing direct measures of information asymmetry developed in the market microstructure literature. The analysis is based on all corporate break-ups in the United States in the period 1995-2005. The...

While theoretical models strongly suggest that short-sales are mainly driven by private information, recent empirical evidence of has been rather mixed. This paper contributes to the discussion by looking at various potential motives to sell short and compares these with regular buys and sales...

We analyze commonality in informed trading across stocks, and how informed trading varies with the structural and trading characteristics of a firm. We thereby isolate the residual level of informed trading that is unrelated to commonality, trading characteristics, and structural...

This paper examines the importance of exchange rate risk in the return generating process for a large sample of non-financial firms from 37 countries. We argue that the effect of exchange rate exposure on stock returns should be conditional and show evidence of a significant return premium to...

Theory predicts sizeable exchange rate (FX) exposure for many firms. However, empirical research has not documented such exposures. To examine this discrepancy, we extend prior theoretical results to model a global firm’s FX exposure and show empirically that firms pass through part of...

According to financial theory, corporate hedging can increase shareholder value in the presence of capital market imperfections such as direct and indirect costs of financial distress, costly external financing, and taxes. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the extensive existing...

This paper provides a broad analysis of the effect of the current financial crisis on global equity markets and their major components. We also examine the magnitude of the crisis in terms of value destruction in comparison to other market crashes. In brief, upon looking at return performance...