For acquisitions characterized by information asymmetries, we find evidence consistent with the proposition that acquirers are able to avoid the winner’s curse. We examine the performance of acquirers of 160 biotechnology firms from 1994-2001 and find evidence that on average, the acquirers of biotech firms realize significant positive returns. These returns are positively correlated with acqui...

We show that labor search frictions are an important determinant of the cross-section of equity returns. In the data, sorting firms by loadings on labor market tightness, the key statistic of search models, generates a spread in future returns of 6% annually. We propose a partial equilibrium labor market model in which heterogeneous firms make optimal employment decisions under labor search fri...

Studies have shown that firm asset growth predicts cross-sectional stock returns. Firms that shrink their assets earn superior returns while firms that substantially expand their assets incur poor returns in the following years. I show that the negative asset growth often implies poor operating performance and a high probability subsequently to be delisted from the exchanges and that the high a...

I analyze the effect of monetary policy actions on the cross-section of equity returns. Based on earlier theoretical work for the monetary transmission mechanism one can argue that changes in monetary policy should produce differentiated effects on firms and stocks with different characteristics. By using different portfolio sorts the results show that the impact of monthly changes in the Feder...

The non-normality of financial asset returns has important implications for hedging. In particular, in contrast with the unambiguous effect that minimum-variance hedging has on the standard deviation, it can actually increase the negative skewness and kurtosis of hedge portfolio returns. Thus the reduction in Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) that minimum-variance hedging...