We document a highly significant, strongly nonlinear dependence of stock and bond returns on past equity-market volatility as measured by the VIX. We propose a new estimator for the shape of the nonlinear forecasting relationship that exploits additional variation in the cross section of...

We document a highly significant, strongly nonlinear dependence of stock and bond returns on past equity market volatility as measured by the VIX. We propose a new estimator for the shape of the nonlinear forecasting relationship that exploits additional variation in the cross section of...

Non-financial performance measures, such as Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) measures, are potentially leading indicators of firms' financial performance. I draw on the prior academic literature and the concept of ESG materiality to develop new corporate governance and ESG...

Hundreds of papers and hundreds of factors attempt to explain the cross-section of expected returns. Given this extensive data mining, it does not make any economic or statistical sense to use the usual significance criteria for a newly discovered factor, e.g., a t-ratio greater than 2.0....

The value a director provides to a firm is empirically hard to establish. We estimate that value by exploiting the commonality in idiosyncratic returns of firms linked by a director and show that, on average, a single director's influence causes variation in firm value of almost 1% per year. The...

We analyze the impact of unanticipated monetary policy changes on equity returns and document that financially constrained firms earn a significantly lower return following rate increases as compared to unconstrained firms. Trading volume is significantly lower for constrained firms on FOMC...

This paper modelizes and provides asset pricing implications of corporate governance policies. Agency costs, proxied by commonly used corporate governance indices, arise because insiders are self-interested and vary across firms. First, firms differ in their agency costs’ level during initial...

Context specific language or jargon helps, by definition, to efficiently and precisely transfer information. However, due to its complex nature, jargon might also be a tool to obfuscate information. This paper studies whether jargon is used in verbal firm disclosures to obfuscate or to...

Aktien werden gekauft, weil sie Dividendenerträge und Kurstgewinne versprechen. Dazu kommen eventuell sonstige geldwerte Vorteile, wie z.B. Gratisaktien bei kapitalerhöhungen aus Gesellschaftsmitteln, Bezugsrechte auf junge Aktien bei kapitalerhöhungen gegen Einlagen, Bezugsrechte bei der...