Financial theory holds that firms can control agency costs through the use of short-term and secured debt. We examine the relation between the use of secured debt and the incentive of the manager to increase the risk of the firm, as measured by vega. We find that firms utilize secured debt to a...

We examine managerial compensation and wealth sensitivities around CEO changes. The average new CEO is incentivized to increase the risk of the firm primarily because he holds significantly less stock than his predecessor, and in fact riskier policy choices are subsequently implemented. Similar...

This paper forecasts earnings per share four - and eight - quarters ahead for 30 Dow firms using out-of-sample combination forecast methods. We show that many financial/economic variables, such as price-earnings ratio, dividend yield and Treasury bill rate, fail to predict out-of-sample EPS...