Production Networks and Stock Returns: The Role of Vertical Creative Destruction We study the relation between firms' risk and their upstreamness in a production network. Empirically, firms' average stock returns and productivity exposures increase monotonically with their upstreamness. We quantitatively explain these novel facts using a multi-layer general equilibrium model. Read more…

Contracting for Financial Execution Financial contracts often specify reference prices whose values are undetermined at the time of contracting, which makes them prone to manipulation. To study such situations, we introduce a stylized model of financial contracting between a client, who wishes to trade a large position, and her broker. Read more…

Managerial Control Benefits and Takeover Market Efficiency How and to what extent do managerial control benefits shape the efficiency of the takeover market? We revisit this question by estimating both the dark and bright sides of managerial control benefits in an industry equilibrium model. On the dark side, managers’ private Read more…

Removing the Fine Print: Standardization, Disclosure, and Consumer Outcomes Consumers face a choice when evaluating financial contracts: study the fine print and incur a cognitive cost or ignore it and risk costly surprises in future. We use a pair of policy changes in Chile to contrast two measures to protect Read more…

What Drives Anomaly Returns? We decompose the returns of …five well-known anomalies into cash fl‡ow and discount rate news. Common patterns emerge across all factor portfolios and their mean-variance efficient combination. The main source of anomaly return variation is news about cash ‡flows. Anomaly cash ‡ow and discount rate components Read more…

International R&D Spillovers and Asset Prices We study the international propagation of long-run risk in the context of a general equilibrium model with endogenous growth. Innovation and international diffusion of technologies are the channels at the core of our mechanism. A calibrated version of the model matches several asset pricing Read more…

Do Short-Term Incentives Affect Long-Term Productivity? Previous research shows that stock repurchases that are caused by earnings management lead to reductions in firm-level investment and employment. It is natural to expect firms to cut less productive investment and employment first, which could lead to a positive effect on firm-level productivity. Read more…

Pension Overhang and Corporate Investment We exploit an exogenous, universal increase (decrease) in discount rates (pension liability) mandated by the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) to identify the impact of pension overhang on investment. We find that firms with large unfunded pension liabilities increase investment Read more…