Flight to safety (FTS) affects the markets for risky assets such as stocks, corporate bonds, and commodities. Yet, little is known about the effects on commercial real estate. We show that REITs offer a partial hedge against FTS, with daily total returns being less sensitive to FTS than many...

We show empirically that the use of unsecured debt, which contains standardized covenants that place limits on total leverage and the use of secured debt, is associated with lower and more stable leverage outcomes. We then show that firm value is sensitive to leverage levels and leverage...

An emerging literature documents a link between central bank quantitative easing (QE) and financial institution credit risk-taking. This paper tests the complementary hypothesis that QE may also affect financial risk-taking. We study Agency MREITs – levered shadow banks that invest in...

We examine the performance of 162 global private equity real estate investment funds across the core, value-add and opportunistic investment style categories over the most recent property cycle (2001-2011). We employ a multi-factor asset pricing model to measure the impact on the funds' total...

The leverage and debt maturity decisions of real estate firms are related. However, most empirical capital structure studies implicitly assume that they are made independently. We explore both these dimensions of capital structure in US real estate companies and REITs and find that leverage and...

Firms can choose a capital structure that maximises real risk-adjusted performance by matching nominal liabilities with nominal assets. In doing so, firms minimise the sensitivity of real risk-adjusted returns to unexpected inflationary shocks. We develop a model of real risk-adjusted...

We employ an original dataset of primary fund information to examine the performance of 162 global private equity real estate investment funds across the core, value-add and opportunistic investment style categories over the most recent property cycle (2001-2011). We employ a multi-factor asset...