Organizations & Markets

We establish several facts about the aggregate idiosyncratic variances of equity markets in 23 countries. First, we document strong global commonality in aggregate idiosyncratic variances of returns and cash flows across countries. Second, the global and country level common factors of the idiosyncratic return and cash flow variances are mostly but not always countercyclical. Third, the time series variation of these common factors in idiosyncratic variances of returns and cash flows are highly correlated.

Shadow bank market share in residential mortgage origination nearly doubled from 2007 to 2015, with particularly dramatic growth among online "fintech" lenders. We study how two forces, regulatory differences and technological advantages, contributed to this growth.

Following the efficiency logic that argues process quality management provides an important basis for firms’ internal controls over their innovation activities, this study which is set within emerging markets extends the literature by shedding light upon an interesting phenomenon: employing process quality management reduces purchasing risk for potential customers by conveying valuable information regarding the firms who employ it (a symbolic logic argument).

We use a very accurate panel of all individual spending, income, balances, and credit limits from a financial aggregation app and document significant payday responses of spending to the arrival of both regular and irregular income. These payday responses are clean, robust, and homogeneous for all income and spending categories throughout the income distribution. Spending responses to income are typically explained by households' capital structures: households that hold little or no liquid wealth have to consume hand-to-mouth.

The case is built around video clips from top business leaders in emerging markets who were interviewed for Harvard Business School’s innovative Creating Emerging Markets oral history project. Corruption is a widespread problem in emerging markets, and this case is focused on the agency of business in this issue. It uses the interview material to explore definitions of corruption; how it impacts business in emerging markets; how it can be addressed, by both the private and the public sectors; and the responsibility of both business and policy-makers to address corruption.

We examine the Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005, 2008) model in several out-of-sample analyzes. The model's one-factor forecasting structure characterizes the term structures of additional currencies in samples ending in 2003. In post-2003 data one-factor structures again characterize each currency's term structure, but we reject equality of the coefficients across the two samples. We derive some implications of the model for the predictability of cross-currency investments, but we find little support for these predictions in either pre-2004 or post-2003 data.

Governments are present-biased toward spending. Fiscal rules are deficit limits that trade off commitment to not overspend and flexibility to react to shocks. We compare coordinated rules, chosen jointly by a group of countries, to uncoordinated rules. If governments' present bias is small, coordinated rules are tighter than uncoordinated rules: individual countries do not internalize the redistributive effect of interest rates. However, if the bias is large, coordinated rules are slacker: countries do not internalize the disciplining effect of interest rates.

Using the staggered adoption of universal demand (UD) laws in the United States, we study the effect of shareholder litigation risk on corporate disclosure. We find that disclosure significantly increases after UD laws make it more difficult to file derivative lawsuits. Specifically, firms issue more earnings forecasts and voluntary 8-K filings, and increase the length of management discussion and analysis (MD&A) in their 10-K filings. We further assess the direct and indirect channels through which UD laws affect firms' disclosure policies.

This chapter examines the impacts of the digital economy on employment, the drivers of change, and the options to alleviate the emerging problems. The digital economy was supposed to replace and enhance industrial jobs, but it has also accelerated the outmigration of blue-collar and service jobs, with only inadequate replacements. The impact on different income classes and generational levels has been unequal. Midpay jobs decreased while low- and high-skilled jobs rose.