{"title":"Embedded Leverage","authors":"Frazzini A, Pedersen L, Pontiff J.","doi":"10.1093/rapstu/raab022","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<span><div>Abstract</div>Many financial instruments are designed with embedded leverage, such as options and leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Embedded leverage alleviates investors’ leverage constraints, and, therefore, we hypothesize that embedded leverage lowers required returns. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find empirically that options and leveraged ETFs provide significant amounts of embedded leverage; this embedded leverage increases return volatility in proportion to the embedded leverage; and higher embedded leverage is associated with lower risk-adjusted returns. The results are statistically and economically significant, and we provide extensive robustness tests and discuss the broader implications of embedded leverage for financial economics. (<span style=\"font-style:italic;\">JEL</span> G02, G11, G12, G13, G14, G20)</span>","PeriodicalId":21144,"journal":{"name":"Review of Asset Pricing Studies","volume":"5 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Review of Asset Pricing Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/rapstu/raab022","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Many financial instruments are designed with embedded leverage, such as options and leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Embedded leverage alleviates investors’ leverage constraints, and, therefore, we hypothesize that embedded leverage lowers required returns. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find empirically that options and leveraged ETFs provide significant amounts of embedded leverage; this embedded leverage increases return volatility in proportion to the embedded leverage; and higher embedded leverage is associated with lower risk-adjusted returns. The results are statistically and economically significant, and we provide extensive robustness tests and discuss the broader implications of embedded leverage for financial economics. (JEL G02, G11, G12, G13, G14, G20)
期刊介绍:
The Review of Asset Pricing Studies (RAPS) is a journal that aims to publish high-quality research in asset pricing. It evaluates papers based on their original contribution to the understanding of asset pricing. The topics covered in RAPS include theoretical and empirical models of asset prices and returns, empirical methodology, macro-finance, financial institutions and asset prices, information and liquidity in asset markets, behavioral investment studies, asset market structure and microstructure, risk analysis, hedge funds, mutual funds, alternative investments, and other related topics.
Manuscripts submitted to RAPS must be exclusive to the journal and should not have been previously published. Starting in 2020, RAPS will publish three issues per year, owing to an increasing number of high-quality submissions. The journal is indexed in EconLit, Emerging Sources Citation IndexTM, RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), and Scopus.