Who makes acquisitions? CEO overconfidence and the market's reaction

Does CEO overconfidence help to explain merger decisions? Overconfident CEOs over-estimate their ability to generate returns. As a result, they overpay for target companies and undertake value-destroying mergers. The effects are strongest if they have access to internal financing. We test these predictions using two proxies for overconfidence: CEOs’ personal over-investment in their company and their press portrayal. We find that the odds of making an acquisition are 65% higher if the CEO is classified as overconfident. The effect is largest if the merger is diversifying and does not require external financing. The market reaction at merger announcement (-90$-90$ basis points) is significantly more negative than for non-overconfident CEOs (-12$-12$ basis points). We consider alternative interpretations including inside information, signaling, and risk tolerance.     

High idiosyncratic volatility and low returns: International and further U.S. evidence

Stocks with recent past high idiosyncratic volatility have low future average returns around the world. Across 23 developed markets, the difference in average returns between the extreme quintile portfolios sorted on idiosyncratic volatility is -1.31%$-1.31\%$ per month, after controlling for world market, size, and value factors. The effect is individually significant in each G7 country. In the United States, we rule out explanations based on trading frictions, information dissemination, and higher moments. There is strong covariation in the low returns to high-idiosyncratic-volatility stocks across countries, suggesting that broad, not easily diversifiable factors lie behind this phenomenon.     

The acquisitiveness of youth: CEO age and acquisition behavior

I demonstrate that acquisitions are accompanied by large, permanent increases in Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation, which create strong financial incentives for CEOs to pursue acquisitions earlier in their career. Accordingly, I document that a firm's acquisition propensity is decreasing in the age of its CEO: a firm with a CEO who is 20 years older is ∼30%$\sim 30\%$ less likely to announce an acquisition. This negative effect of CEO age on acquisitions is strongest among firms where CEOs likely anticipate or can influence high post-acquisition compensation, and is absent for other investment decisions that are not rewarded with permanent compensation gains. The age effect cannot be explained by the selection of young CEOs by acquisition-prone firms, nor by a story of declining overconfidence with age. This paper underscores the relevance of CEO personal characteristics and CEO-level variation in agency problems for corporate decisions.     

Two counters of jumps

This paper introduces a class of two counters of jumps option pricing models. The stock price follows a jump-diffusion process with price jumps up and price jumps down, where each type of jumps can have different means and standard deviations. Price jumps can be negatively autocorrelated as it has been observed in practice. We investigate the volatility surfaces generated by this class of two counters of jumps option pricing models. Our formulae, like the jump-diffusion models with a single counter of jumps, are able to generate smiles, and skews   with similar shapes to those observed in the options markets. More importantly, unlike the jump-diffusion models with a single counter of jumps, our formulae are able to generate term structures of implied volatilities of at-the-money options with ∩$\cap$-shaped patterns similar to those observed in the marketplace.     

An Alternative Testable Form of the Consumption CAPM

This paper develops a consumption-oriented model of asset prices in a multigood economy that is, in principle, testable even when aggregate consumption of goods and their market prices are only partially observable. Previous studies show that, when there are m consumption goods, equilibrium expected excess returns on securities are functions of their covariances with $m+1$ variables—aggregate consumption expenditure and market prices of consumption goods. Without making any further assumptions, the present model shows that a similar equilibrium relationship can be expressed in terms of covariances of asset returns with the following $m+1$ variables: market prices of k consumption goods and aggregate consumption of $m+1?k$ goods. Because the author's result provides researchers with some flexibility in choosing the set of $m+1$ variables that measure riskiness of securities, it should lead to more powerful tests of the model.     

Patterns of Productivity in the Finance Literature: A Study of the Bibliometric Distributions

This study finds a bibliometric regularity in the finance literature that the number of authors publishing n papers is about $1/n^c$ of those publishing one paper. We find that the finance literature conforms very well to the inverse square law $(c=2)$ if data are taken from a large collection of journals. When applied to individual finance journals, we find that values of c range from 1.95 to 3.26. We also find that top-rated journals have higher concentrations among their contributors. This implies that the phenomenon “success breeds success” is more common in higher quality publications.     

Predictive Regressions: A Present‐Value Approach

We propose a latent variables approach within a present‐value model to estimate the expected returns and expected dividend growth rates of the aggregate stock market. This approach aggregates information contained in the history of price‐dividend ratios and dividend growth rates to predict future returns and dividend growth rates. We find that returns and dividend growth rates are predictable with $R^2$ values ranging from 8.2% to 8.9% for returns and 13.9% to 31.6% for dividend growth rates. Both expected returns and expected dividend growth rates have a persistent component, but expected returns are more persistent than expected dividend growth rates.     

R2

Even with hindsight, the ability to explain stock price changes is modest. $R^2$s were calculated for the returns of large stocks as explained by systematic economic influences, by the returns on other stocks in the same industry, and by public firm-specific news events. The average adjusted $R^2$ is only about .35 with monthly data and .20 with daily data. There is little relation between explanatory power and either the firm's size or its industry. There is little improvement in $R^2$ from eliminating all dates surrounding news reports in the financial press. However, the sample kurtosis is quite different when such news events are eliminated, thereby revealing a mixture of return distributions. Non-news dates also indicate the presence of a distributional mixture, perhaps due to traders acting on private information.     

A Theoretical Analysis of Real Estate Returns

In this paper, we consider two hypotheses for the recent performance of real estate returns. The first is the random event argument that real estate is positively correlated with unanticipated inflation but that structural change in expected returns due to a change in the perceived sensitivity of returns to unanticipated inflation has not taken place. The second is the hedge demand argument that formulates the structural shift hypothesis. The paucity of real estate and other expectations data as well as the general identification problem make it extremely difficult to distinguish between these hypothesis. Our tests consist of estimates of inflation betas for various asset categories overtime as well as estimates of the hedge vector, $S^{-1}C$. Although some support for the hedge argument is found, the results are not strong enough to reject the random event argument and conclude that a decline in the required return on real estate due to a relative increase in inflation beta drove returns during the 1970's.     

Assessing Goodness-of-Fit of Asset Pricing Models: The Distribution of the Maximal R2

The development of asset pricing models that rely on instrumental variables together with the increased availability of easily-accessible economic time-series have renewed interest in predicting security returns. Evaluating the significance of these new research findings, however, is no easy task. Because these asset pricing theory tests are not independent, classical methods of assessing goodness-of-fit are inappropriate. This study investigates the distribution of the maximal $R^2$ when k of m regressors are used to predict security returns. We provide a simple procedure that adjusts critical $R^2$ values to account for selecting variables by searching among potential regressors.     

A Theoretical Framework for Evaluating the Impact of Universal Reserve Requirements

This paper provides an appropriate framework to evaluate the impact of the universal reserve requirements called for by the new DIDMC Act of 1980. We derived the optimal reserve ratios for a dual banking system under the objective of controlling the monetary aggregates and the level of output. Then optimal reserve requirements were calculated from illustrative money market and macroeconomic parameters since the usual comparative statics were not useful. The results, generally, suggested optimal reserve ratios which were significantly higher than the old dual or the new universal reserve regimes for all targets. However, the calculation of values for the loss functions under various reserve regimes suggests that attainment of $r_1^{*},r_2^{*}$ and $t^{*}$ may not be imperative, since the discrepancy between losses for optimal and various nonoptimal reserve schemes were not large. A major result of this paper, observed for both monetary and real targets, was that the differences in the instability of the targets for the old dual reserve ratios and the Fed's new universal reserve scheme were small. This result clearly suggests that although the DIDMC Act may solve the Federal Reserve's membership problem, it will not significantly enhance the Fed's effectiveness in controlling monetary or real sector aggregates.     

Default and Recovery Implicit in the Term Structure of Sovereign CDS Spreads

This paper explores the nature of default arrival and recovery implicit in the term structures of sovereign CDS spreads. We argue that term structures of spreads reveal not only the arrival rates of credit events ${(\lambda }^{?})$, but also the loss rates given credit events. Applying our framework to Mexico, Turkey, and Korea, we show that a single‐factor model with ${\lambda }^{?}$ following a lognormal process captures most of the variation in the term structures of spreads. The risk premiums associated with unpredictable variation in ${\lambda }^{?}$ are found to be economically significant and co‐vary importantly with several economic measures of global event risk, financial market volatility, and macroeconomic policy.     

Growth Opportunities and Risk-Taking by Financial Intermediaries

We show that growth opportunities which cannot be converted to cash under conditions of financial distress $\left(G_z\right)$ are a critical determinant of an intermediary's choice of risk. Financial institutions in which $G_z$ is a low proportion of total assets will be much more likely to engage in go-for-broke behavior. The model leads to a reevaluation of the effectiveness of several traditional remedies for dealing with banks that take excessive risks such as raising insurance premiums, intervening before capital is depleted, and restricting investment options. The model also has implications about a new approach to the examination of financial intermediaries.     

On the Effects of Barriers to International Investment

A simple model is presented in which it is costly for domestic investors to hold foreign assets. The implications of the model for the composition of optimal portfolios at home and abroad are derived. It is shown that all foreign assets with a beta larger than some beta ${\beta }^{*}$ plot on either one of two security market lines. Some foreign assets with a beta smaller than ${\beta }^{*}$ are not held by domestic investors even if their expected return is increased slightly.     

Portfolio Inefficiency and the Cross-section of Expected Returns

The Capital Asset Pricing Model implies that (i) the market portfolio is efficient and (ii) expected returns are linearly related to betas. Many do not view these implications as separate, since either implies the other, but we demonstrate that either can hold nearly perfectly while the other fails grossly. If the index portfolio is inefficient, then the coefficients and $R^2$ from an ordinary least squares regression of expected returns on betas can equal essentially any values and bear no relation to the index portfolio's mean-variance location. That location does determine the outcome of a mean-beta regression fitted by generalized least squares.