ARE THE TWIN DEFICITS REALLY RELATED?

The emergence of record current-account and fiscal deficits in the United States during the 1980s draws increasing attention to what has become known as the "twin deficit" problem. Conventional wisdom is that a shift to larger government deficits entails a decline in government saving and results in larger trade deficits, Persistently large trade deficits are troublesome because they imply a transfer of wealth to foreigners and possibly a reduction in future generations' living standards.
This paper examines whether post-World War II data for the United States reveal a long-run secular relationship between the trade deficit and the fiscal deficit. The focus is on the secular relationship since that is the one most relevant to long-run policy concerns. The authors employ three different statistical techniques: (i) a deterministic technique for separating the secular components from the cyclical components to derive secular measures of the twin deficits, (ii) a stochastic procedure to isolate the secular components, (Hi) cointegration analysis to test for a long-run equilibrium relationship.
The authors conclude that, based on the first two approaches, evidence of a positive secular relationship between the twin deficits exists only under flexible exchange rates. This relationship appears quite strong–that is, a $1 change in the fiscal deficit eventually leads to roughly a $1 change in the trade deficit. On the other hand, findings based on cointegration analysis indicate no long-run equilibrium relationship between the twin deficits. This latter finding, however, may reflect a low power of the relevant statistical tests stemming from the shortness of the sample period.     

Institutional Ownership and Changes in the S&P 500

Several recent articles have provided new evidence for the existence of price pressures by examining the price and volume effects associated with changes in the S&P 500. The present study extends this work by examining actual changes in institutional holdings following both additions to and deletions from the S&P 500. The results show that changes in institutional holdings in response to additions or deletions from the S&P 500 are positively correlated. In addition to providing further evidence for the existence of price pressure effects, the results also provide evidence of the very large institutional elasticities of demand for stock.     

A New Approach to Testing Asset Pricing Models: The Bilinear Paradigm

We propose a new approach to estimating and testing asset pricing models in the context of a bilinear paradigm introduced by Kruskal 18 . This approach is both simple and at the same time quite general. As an illustration we apply it to the special case of the arbitrage pricing model where the number of factors is pre-specified. The data appear to be generally in conflict with a five or seven factor representation of the model used by Roll and Ross 30 . When we consider the number of replications of our test and the large number of observations on which it is performed, the frequency with which we reject the three factor APM does not lead us to conclude that this model is unrepresentative of security returns. Further, the rejection of the five and seven factor versions is to be expected if the three factor version is correct. The paradigm gives insight into the appropriate specification of the model and suggests that there may be a small number of economy wide factors that affect security returns.     

The Book-to-Price Effect in Stock Returns: Accounting for Leverage

This paper lays out a decomposition of book‐to‐price (B/P) that derives from the accounting for book value and that articulates precisely how B/P “absorbs” leverage. The B/P ratio can be decomposed into an enterprise book‐to‐price (that pertains to operations and potentially reflects operating risk) and a leverage component (that reflects financing risk). The empirical analysis shows that the enterprise book‐to‐price ratio is positively related to subsequent stock returns but, conditional upon the enterprise book‐to‐price, the leverage component of B/P is negatively associated with future stock returns. Further, both enterprise book‐to‐price and leverage explain returns over those associated with Fama and French nominated factors—including the book‐to‐price factor—albeit negatively so for leverage. The seemingly perverse finding with respect to the leverage component of B/P survives under controls for size, estimated beta, return volatility, momentum, and default risk.     

Information Diversity and Market Behavior

The paper addresses two major issues raised by information diversity in a speculative market. First, we analyze what property of an investor's information leads to an expected speculative profit and show that independence is more important than accuracy. Second, we consider whether the market price must become fully efficient, in the sense that every investor's information is accurately discounted, when traders use it rationally as an information source. We prove that for any information structure there is a unique equilibrium weighting of investor beliefs at which the price is fully efficient and also every trader's expected profit is zero. Except for special structures, however, this equilibrium need not be attained in finite time.     

The Real Effects of FAS 166/167 on Banks’ Mortgage Approval and Sale Decisions

We examine the real effects of FAS 166 and FAS 167 on banks’ loan‐level mortgage approval and sale decisions. Effective in 2010, these standards tightened the accounting for securitizations and consolidation of securitization entities, respectively, causing banks to recognize an estimated $811 billion of securitized assets on balance sheet. We find that banks that recognize more securitized assets exhibit larger decreases in mortgage approval rates and larger increases in mortgage sale rates. These effects significantly exceed those of banks’ off–balance sheet securitized assets, consistent with our results being driven by the consolidation of securitization entities rather than by securitization per se. We conduct tests that help rule out the financial crisis as an alternative explanation for our results. Further analyses suggest that mechanisms underlying the results include consolidating banks’ reduced regulatory capital adequacy, increased market discipline, and consequent desire not to recognize high‐risk mortgages on balance sheet.     

Using Neural Data to Test a Theory of Investor Behavior: An Application to Realization Utility

We conduct a study in which subjects trade stocks in an experimental market while we measure their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging. All of the subjects trade in a suboptimal way. We use the neural data to test a “realization utility” explanation for their behavior. We find that activity in two areas of the brain that are important for economic decision‐making exhibit activity consistent with the predictions of realization utility. These results provide support for the realization utility model. More generally, they demonstrate that neural data can be helpful in testing models of investor behavior.     

How Do Firms Respond to Political Uncertainty? Evidence from U.S. Gubernatorial Elections

We examine the joint response to political uncertainty along two margins: changes in real activity and voluntary disclosure. We focus on within-firm variation in exposure to ex ante competitive U.S. gubernatorial elections using data on preelection poll margins and firms’ state exposures. Despite real activity falling in the years leading up to a close election, we find that voluntary disclosure increases both in frequency and content, including mentions of risk in filings that reference states holding elections. Our tests use a decomposition of 8-K filings into real activity and voluntary disclosure to address the endogenous complementarity between these two responses. These results hold when using alternative ex ante measures of political uncertainty based on term-limited incumbents, historically competitive offices, or state legislature gridlock. Both effects of political uncertainty are stronger for firms in highly regulated industries and weaker for those least exposed to the local market, linking the real activity and disclosure responses to uncertainty.     

Do Municipal Bond Dealers Give Their Customers “Fair and Reasonable” Pricing?

Municipal bonds exhibit considerable retail pricing variation, even for same-size trades of the same bond on the same day, and even from the same dealer. Markups vary widely across dealers. Trading strongly clusters on eighth price increments, and clustered trades exhibit higher markups. Yields are often lowered to just above salient numbers. Machine learning estimates exploiting the richness of the data show that dealers that use strategic pricing have systematically higher markups. Recent Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board rules have had only a limited impact on markups. While a subset of dealers focus on best execution, many dealers appear focused on opportunistic pricing.