Interlinking securities settlement systems: A strategic commitment?

Central securities depositories (CSDs) in Europe have opened mutual links, but most of them are seldom used. Why are idle links established? By allowing a foreign CSD to offer services through the link, the domestic CSD invites competition. By inviting competition the domestic CSD can commit itself not to charge monopoly fees for secondary market services. This enables it to charge higher fees for securities issuance in the primary market. It is shown that commitment via an idle link can be optimal for a profit maximising CSD.     

The happy story of small business financing

We examine two data sets, one from the UK (n = 15,750) and one from the US (n = 3239), to show that SME financial behaviour demonstrates substantial financial contentment, or ‘happiness’. We find fewer than 10% of the UK firms seek significant growth and only 1.32% of US firms list a shortage of capital other than working capital as a problem. Financial performance indicators (growth, return on assets, profit margin) were not found to be determinants of SME financing activities, as might be expected in a ‘rational’ risk–return environment. Younger and less educated SME owners more actively use external financing – even though more education reduces the fear of loan denial – while older and more educated (‘wiser’) SME owners are found to be being less likely to seek or use external financing. The contentment hypothesis for SME financing also extends to high-growth firms in that we show that they participate more in the loan markets than low-growth firms. By way of contrast to the finance gap hypothesis, the contentment hypothesis observes the importance of social networks (connections) [for finance] and confirms the ‘connections – happiness’ linkage in the literature on happiness while doubting the theoretical suitability of Jensen and Meckling [Jensen, M., Meckling, W., 1976. Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs, and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics 3, 305–360.] base-case analysis for SMEs.     

Missing the marks? Dispersion in corporate bond valuations across mutual funds

We study the dispersion of month-end valuations placed on identical corporate bonds by different mutual funds. Such dispersion is related to bond-specific characteristics associated with liquidity and market volatility. The Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) could have contributed to the general decline in dispersion over our sample period, though other factors most likely played roles. Further tests reveal marking patterns to be consistent with returns smoothing behavior by managers. Funds with ambiguous marking policies and those holding “hard-to-mark” bonds appear more prone to smooth reported returns. From a regulatory perspective, we see little downside to requiring funds to explicitly state their marking standards.     

Product differentiation and efficiencies in the retail banking industry

We empirically quantify the welfare implications of bank entry in the United States between 2000 and 2008. We use a fully structural framework that combines a differentiated demand model with an endogenous product model to investigate the market outcomes. We find no evidence for under- or over-entry. Compared with the socially efficient outcome, there is a mild welfare loss resulting from banks entering wrong locations in product space. Compared with the observed outcome, consumer surplus drops by 20–38% and bank profits decline by 48–59% when banks are homogeneous. Therefore product differentiation significantly improves welfare under free entry.     

Advantageous innovation and imitation in the underwriting market for corporate securities

Investment banks that develop new corporate securities systematically lead the new underwriting market despite being imitated early by equally competitive rivals. We study how innovators and imitators set underwriting fees in order to identify empirically the source of this advantage. Using data of innovative securities since 1985, we do find that innovators set systematically higher fees than imitators. This premium decreases as more issues occur, and faster for later generation products. Imitation is also quicker for later generations. This evidence supports the hypothesis that the innovator has superior skills in structuring any given issue of the new security.     

Pricing rainfall futures at the CME

Many business people such as farmers and financial investors are affected by indirect losses caused by scarce or abundant rainfall. Because of the high potential of insuring rainfall risk, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) began trading rainfall derivatives in 2011. Compared to temperature derivatives, however, pricing rainfall derivatives is more difficult. In this article, we propose to model rainfall indices via a flexible type of distribution, namely the normal-inverse Gaussian distribution, which captures asymmetries and heavy-tail behaviour. The prices of rainfall futures are computed by employing the Esscher transform, a well-known tool in actuarial science. This approach is flexible enough to price any rainfall contract and to adjust theoretical prices to market prices by using the calibrated market price of risk. The empirical analysis is conducted with US precipitation data and CME futures data providing first results on the market price of risk for rainfall derivatives.     

Opaque financial reports, R, and crash risk

We investigate the relation between the transparency of financial statements and the distribution of stock returns. Using earnings management as a measure of opacity, we find that opacity is associated with higher R²s, indicating less revelation of firm-specific information. Moreover, opaque firms are more prone to stock price crashes, consistent with the prediction of the Jin and Myers [2006. R² around the world: new theory and new tests. Journal of Financial Economics 79, 257–292] model. However, these relations seem to have dissipated since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, suggesting that earnings management has decreased or that firms can hide less information in the new regulatory environment.     

Venture-Capital Investment in Minority Business

This study analyzes the performance of mature investments made by venture-capital (VC) funds that specialize in financing minority business enterprises. We explore the hypothesis that VCs focusing on investing in minority businesses earn attractive returns because this market niche is underserved. Minority VC funds collectively earned yields on their realized investments that were estimated to be broadly equivalent to those of the mainstream VC industry. However, these yields vary greatly from fund to fund. VC fund traits that predict high yields on individual investments are identified by estimating multivariate regressions explaining net investment returns.     

Cost efficiency in the European securities settlement and depository industry

We examine whether the European settlement and custody institutions operate in an efficient way. To do this, we start from an analytically founded discussion regarding the activities performed by the operators in this sector. Based on the insights obtained, we estimate both a translog cost function and a constant elasticity of substitution – quadratic cost function. From the results obtained, there clearly are economies of scale in this industry. Moreover, also economies of scope between the activities performed are present. These findings imply that probably further consolidation is ahead, and that separating certain activities from others can only be done at a cost in terms of efficiency.     

Demand estimation and consumer welfare in the banking industry

This paper estimates a structural demand model for commercial bank deposit services in order to measure the effects on consumers given dramatic changes in bank services throughout US branching deregulation in the 1990s. Following the discrete choice literature, consumer decisions are based on prices and bank characteristics. Consumers are found to respond to deposit rates, and to a lesser extent, to account fees, in choosing a depository institution. Moreover, consumers respond favorably to the branch staffing and geographic density, as well as to the bank’s age, size, and geographic diversification. Consumers in most markets experience a slight increase in welfare throughout the period.     

The performance of hedge funds and mutual funds in emerging markets

Use of short selling and derivatives is limited in most emerging markets because such instruments are not as readily available as they are in developed capital markets. These limitations raise questions about the value added provided by hedge funds, especially compared to traditional mutual funds active in these markets. We use five existing performance measurement models plus a new asset-style factor model to identify the return sources and the alpha generated by both types of funds. We analyze subperiods, different market environments, and structural breaks. Our results indicate that some hedge funds generate significant positive alpha, whereas most mutual funds do not outperform traditional benchmarks. We find that hedge funds are more active in shifting their asset allocation. The higher degree of freedom that hedge funds enjoy in their investment style might thus be one explanation for the differences in performance.     

Liquidity shocks,size and the relative performance of hedge fund strategies

We examine whether the increase in the flow of capital to hedge funds over the period 1994–2005 had a negative impact on performance. More specifically, we study the relative performance of small versus large funds for each of the hedge fund strategies. Our results indicate that on an absolute return basis, small funds outperform large funds. On a risk-adjusted return basis, however, we find that large funds outperform small funds, and that large funds are also shown to hold less liquid assets and take on less systematic and idiosyncratic risk than small funds. Further, funds that experience positive liquidity shocks generally outperform those that experience negative liquidity shocks. We also find evidence that hedge fund managers that are aggressive in dealing with liquidity shocks perform better than hedge fund managers that are conservative in dealing with liquidity shocks.     

The strategy of professional forecasting

We develop and compare two theories of professional forecasters’ strategic behavior. The first theory, reputational cheap talk, posits that forecasters endeavor to convince the market that they are well informed. The market evaluates their forecasting talent on the basis of the forecasts and the realized state. If the market expects forecasters to report their posterior expectations honestly, then forecasts are shaded toward the prior mean. With correct market expectations, equilibrium forecasts are imprecise but not shaded. The second theory posits that forecasters compete in a forecasting contest with pre-specified rules. In a winner-take-all contest, equilibrium forecasts are excessively differentiated.     

Information verifiability, bank organization, bank competition and bank-borrower relationships

This paper investigates whether the benefits of bank-borrower relationships differ depending on three factors identified in the theoretical literature: verifiability of information, bank size and complexity, and bank competition. We extend the current literature by analyzing how relationship lending affects loan contract terms and credit availability in an empirical model that simultaneously accounts for all three of these factors. Based on Japanese survey data we find evidence that the benefits from stronger bank-borrower relationships in terms of credit availability are limited to smaller banks. However, when the benefits are measured as improved credit terms, we find little additional benefit, and in some cases increased cost, from stronger relationships for opaque borrowers and for borrowers who get funding from small banks. These latter findings suggest the possibility that relationship borrowers may suffer from capture effects.     

A note on the price- and cost structure of retail payment services in the Swedish banking sector 2002

We estimate private costs in the Swedish banking sector for the production of payment services and investigate to what extent the price structure reflects the estimated cost structure. We find that (i) banks tend to use two-part tariffs but (ii) variable costs are poorly reflected in transaction fees towards both consumers and corporate customers. (iii) There exist large cross subsidies between different payment services, foremost from acquiring card payments to cash distribution to the public, while payment services as a whole are not subsidized.     

Managerial ownership and the disposition effect

This paper examines the relationship between mutual fund managers’ ownership and the disposition effect. Using recently disclosed managerial ownership data required by new SEC rules, we document that a significant number of mutual funds exhibit the disposition effect. Funds with managerial ownership exhibit significantly less disposition effect than those without, and the disposition measure decreases with managers’ percentage ownership. We also find that the disposition effect is negatively related to the degree of board independence and fund performance. Our findings suggest that the disposition effect is significantly affected by fund governance and higher managerial ownership may help mitigate the problem.     

Incentives and risk taking in hedge funds

We study how incentive fees and manager’s own investment in the fund affect the investment strategy of hedge fund managers. We find that loss averse managers increase the risk of the fund’s investment strategy with higher incentive fees. However, risk taking is greatly reduced if a substantial amount of the manager’s own money (at least 30%) is in the fund. Using the Zurich hedge fund universe, we test the relation between risk taking and incentive fees empirically. Hedge funds with incentive fees have significantly lower mean returns (net of fees), while downside risk is positively related to the incentive fee level. Fund of funds charging large incentive fees achieve relatively high mean returns, but with significantly higher risk as well.     

Portfolio manager ownership and fund performance

This paper documents the range of portfolio manager ownership in the funds they manage and examines whether higher ownership is associated with improved future performance. Almost half of all managers have ownership stakes in their funds, though the absolute investment is modest. Future risk-adjusted performance is positively related to managerial ownership, with performance improving by about 3 basis points for each basis point of managerial ownership. These findings persist after controlling for various measures of fund board effectiveness. Fund manager ownership is higher in funds with better past performance, lower front-end loads, smaller size, longer managerial tenure, and funds affiliated with smaller families. It is also higher in funds with higher board member compensation and in equity funds relative to bond funds. Future performance is positively related to the component of ownership that can be predicted by other variables, as well as the unpredictable component. Our findings support the notion that managerial ownership has desirable incentive alignment attributes for mutual fund investors and indicate that the disclosure of this information is useful in making portfolio allocation decisions.     

The dynamics of quote adjustments

Liquidity providers on the NYSE make faster quote adjustments towards equilibrium spreads and depths than they do on NASDAQ. Liquidity providers in both markets make faster spread and depth adjustments for stocks with more frequent trading, greater return volatility, higher prices, smaller market capitalizations, and smaller trade sizes. We find that stocks with greater information-based trading and in more competitive trading environments exhibit faster quote adjustments. The speed of quote adjustment is faster after decimalization in both markets. These results are robust and not driven by differences in stock attributes between the two markets or time periods. Overall, our results indicate that stock attributes, market structure, and tick size exert a significant impact on the speed of quote adjustment.     

The Intraday Relation between NYSE and CBOE Prices

I extend the literature regarding price discovery across stock and option markets through an empirical model that allows information to flow through an error‐correction term and volatility. NYSE prices tend to lead CBOE prices by at least thirty minutes over the entire six‐year sample period. In addition, informed trading in the options market is revealed more strongly through persistence in volatility and the spillover of volatility to the stock market than it is through returns.