Corporate Finance

This paper compares accounting and finance approaches to equity valuation, with a focus on practical investing. It shows how the two endeavors tie to the same theoretical foundation so they have the potential of being unified. Finance has largely focused on the "denominator" aspect of valuation— the discount rate—under the mantra of "asset pricing" while accounting has largely focused on the numerator; specifying the expected accounting outcomes to be discounted. The paper shows how both accounting and finance can be unified to resolve both the numerator and denominator issue in valuation.

This paper discusses some existing and potential roles of financial reporting disclosures. The focus is on what are conventionally termed mandatory disclosures, although as Sunder (1997) points out the distinction between mandatory and voluntary is somewhat arbitrary. The paper views disclosure through the lens of incentives. Accounting disclosures are a component of the broad set of information shareholders, debt holders, and other accountees have to assess the stewardship of accountors.

This paper argues that there is a Coasean Bargain available to banks, Long-term Investors, and Bank Regulators around a particular form of "Contingent Capital." By purchasing rights to issue equity in crisis events at a pre-specified price from Long-term Investors, banks can ensure that they will have sufficient regulatory capital available when they need it most: in a crisis. By selling these rights (effectively, a form of crisis insurance) long-term investors can monetize their counter-cyclical investments strategies in banks and, thus, obtain an adequate return as long-term investors.

Government officials, policy analysts, practitioners, and academics from diverse perspectives across the globe have enthusiastically endorsed the promise of public-private engagement to solve pressing problems of public policy.  The endorsement often is a rallying cry for a change in policy or reform of a prevailing policy regime.  In theory and practice, the idea of public-private (PP) blurs prevailing distinctions between roles and actions traditionally considered properly “public” and those roles and actions conventionally considered properly “private.”  It signifies a shi

Price momentum strategies have historically generated high positive returns with little systematic risk. However, these strategies also experience infrequent but severe losses. During 13 of the 978 months in our 1929–2010 sample, losses to a US-equity momentum strategy exceed 20 percent per month. We demonstrate that a hidden Markov model in which the market moves between latent "turbulent" and "calm" states in a systematic stochastic manner captures these high-loss episodes.

We consider three "crisis shocks" related to key features of the 2007-2008 crisis, for emerging and developed economies: (1) the collapse of global trade, (2) the contraction of credit supply, and (3) selling pressure on firms' equity. Using an international cross-section of firms, we find that returns' sensitivities to these shocks imply large and statistically significant influences on residual equity returns during the crisis period (after controlling for normal risk factors that are associated with expected returns).

"Much of what we experience in life results from a combination of skill and luck." — From the Introduction

The trick, of course, is figuring out just how many of our successes (and failures) can be attributed to each — and how we can learn to tell the difference ahead of time.

This paper provides evidence of the real effects of financial markets. Using mutual fund redemptions as an instrument for price changes, we identify a strong effect of market prices on takeover activity (the "trigger effect"). An inter-quartile decrease in valuation leads to a 7 percentage point increase in acquisition likelihood, relative to a 6% unconditional takeover probability. Instrumentation addresses the fact that prices are endogenous and increase in anticipation of a takeover (the "anticipation effect").

We develop an incomplete-markets q-theoretic model to study entrepreneurship dynamics. Precautionary motive, borrowing constraints, and capital illiquidity lead to underinvestment, conservative debt use, under-consumption, and less risky portfolio allocation. The endogenous liquid wealth-illiquid capital ratio w measures time-varying financial constraint. The option to accumulate wealth before entry is critical for entrepreneurship. Flexible exit option is important for risk management purposes.