________________________________________________________________________ Abstract This study examines the sensitivity of equity values of oil producers to changes in the uncertainty of future oil prices. We document that this sensitivity is negatively correlated with a firm's debt ratio and its production costs. These results indicate that companies that are more likely to experience financial ...

We use the occasion of a change in tax policy that raised the tax rate for many of the listed companies in China to examine tax-induced earnings management (TEM) from the perspective of political connections. We find that when the tax rate increased, only those affected firms with politically connected management engaged in TEM. This suggests that, in addition to motivation for managing earning...

This paper analyzes the wealth and risk incentive effects of managerial options and shareholdings on the hedging probability of UK listed Alternative Investment Market (AIM) companies. We find that the wealth incentive effect provided by managerial option holdings increases the hedging likelihood. On the contrary, the wealth incentive effect provided by managerial shareholdings decreases the he...

We analyze debt choice in light of taxes and moral hazard. The model features an infinite sequence of nonzero-sum stochastic differential games between equity and debt. Closed-form expressions are derived for all contingent-claims. If equity can increase volatility without reducing asset drift, callable bonds with call premia are optimal. Although callable bonds induce risk shifting, call premi...

This paper presents an industry equilibrium model where firms can choose to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. We model CSR activities as an investment in customer loyalty and show that CSR decreases systematic risk. This e§ect is stronger for firms producing di§erentiated goods and when consumers’ expenditure share on CSR goods is small. We find supporting evidence for...

Paralleling regulatory developments, we devise value-at-risk and expected shortfall type risk measures for the potential losses arising from using misspecified models when pricing and hedging contingent claims. Essentially, losses from model risk correspond to losses realized on a perfectly hedged position. Model uncertainty is expressed by a set of pricing models, relative to which potential l...

We solve the credit spread puzzle with a structural model of firms policies that endogenously replicates the empirical cross–section of credit spreads. Structural estimation of the model’s parameters reveals that the model cannot be rejected by the data, and that endogenous investment decisions are major determinants of CDS spreads. We also verify that controlling for financial leverage, CDS sp...

Contingent ownership structures are prevalent in joint ventures. This paper o ers an explanation based on the investment incentives provided by such an arrangement. We consider a hold-up problem in which two parties make relationshipspeci c investments sequentially in order to generate a joint surplus in the future. In our model, the following ownership structure implements rst best investments...

We use mutual fund flows as a measure of individual investor sentiment for different stocks, and find that high sentiment predicts low future returns. Fund flows are dumb money–by reallocating across different mutual funds, retail investors reduce their wealth in the long run. This dumb money effect is related to the value effect: high sentiment stocks tend to be growth stocks. High sentiment a...

I study how strategic alliances and their impact on future competitive incentives can motivate interfirm equity sales. In the model, an alliance between an entrepreneurial firm and an established firm improves efficiency for both. However, the requisite knowledge transfer heightens the established firm’s incentive to enter one of its partner’s markets. I show that equity can eliminate the entry...