International Review of Finance最新文献

This study is motivated by the improved empirical framework of the Fourier flexible form estimation to investigate how the demographic structure leads to asymmetric effects on direct and indirect (mutual fund) equity demands. We find that, first, the demographic structure has asymmetric effects between direct and indirect equity purchases. Second, those in early old age create a stronger demand for indirect equity than other age cohorts in the middle of declining demand from young period. Third, we find theoretical and empirical evidence that direct and indirect equity demands respond asymmetrically to market risk aversion. Finally, we find evidence that bonds can substitute for indirect equity.

This paper examines the effect of preferences for liquidity on the relationship between disasters and growth along with disaster risk management. It further demonstrates that preferences for liquidity lead to less consumption. Moreover, from preferences for liquidity perspective, our model can potentially reconcile the conflicting predictions on the interaction between disasters and growth in the empirical findings. Finally, we find that preferences for liquidity cause policymakers to become more incentivized in mitigating disaster risk and lead them overestimate the welfare benefit of policy instruments.

In this article, we investigate the pattern and dynamics of return and volatility connectedness across East and Southeast Asian markets (referred to as the ASEAN5 + 5 group) by utilizing forecast-error variance decompositions in a generalized VAR framework in conjunction with the Bai-Perron procedure to control for structural breaks. Our analysis of the dynamics of return spillovers in static and time-varying settings identifies that the stock markets of Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea act as constant and largest net transmitters of shocks throughout the period from January 2003 to July 2021. The Chinese stock market is found to have the lowest return connectedness with other regional markets, which could be due to the local foreign ownership regulations. Visualization of the net pairwise return spillover network shows that Singapore is the sole net transmitter of shocks to all other markets in the ASEAN5 + 5 group, whereas, China, despite its market size is the sole net recipient. Two other markets in the regional group are identified as the net receivers, Japan and the Philippines, with the former becoming a net recipient from 2007. Our analysis of structural breaks shows that return spillovers across the markets intensify during periods of economic turmoil, financial shocks and the health crisis (COVID-19), however, return to the pre-shock levels during stable market periods. Further analysis of time-varying patterns revealed that the dynamic connectedness across the region is not symmetrical and the influence of negative returns is more pronounced. The investigation of volatility spillovers shows no substantial differences. The stock markets generally retain their roles. Importantly, the time-varying volatility connectedness exhibits similar patterns and tends to reach peak levels during turbulent episodes.

Our study, using a large sample of U.S. firms between 1990 and 2013, found a positive association between pension risk-taking and future stock price crash risk. The impact of pension risk-taking on future crash risk is particularly significant in firms with low funding ratios and high default risks. Overall, our findings provide robust evidence that risk-taking in defined benefit (DB) pension asset management can predict future crash risk. Our study offers valuable insights for stakeholders and shareholders in evaluating firms with DB pension plans and for policymakers in protecting workers' retirement benefits and shareholder wealth.

This paper examines how cognitive ability affects households' demand for financial advice and whether households with financial advisors reap better investment returns in China. Using data from the nationally representative China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) and China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find that math ability (i.e., one domain of cognitive ability) has a significant and negative effect on households' propensity to hire financial advisors, whereas the impact of verbal ability (i.e., another domain of cognitive ability) on seeking financial advice is insignificant. The analysis also suggests that the influence of cognitive limitation is larger for less educated and financially literate households. We conduct a regression discontinuity based on the Huai River policy, supporting the causal influence of cognitive ability on financial advice seeking. Furthermore, we find no evidence that financial advice improves investors' investment performance.

Using data on city-level daily traffic congestion and stock block trading, we investigate the impact of trader cities' traffic congestion on the stock block trading price. We find that higher level of traffic congestion in the traders' cities is associated with lower stock block trading premium, particularly when the information asymmetry between the trading parties is high. We also find that the buyers have more bargaining power in determining the price premium of block trading. Moreover, we employ a multi-pronged approach to address the identification issue and find confirming evidence for the causal link.

This short report investigates the stock market behavior of Swiss companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results suggest that family firms performed better during the outbreak and post-lockdown periods than widely-held firms. Family firms also displayed a larger abnormal trading volume drop than widely-held companies. In size-sorted subsamples, the volume difference appears more pronounced for smaller firms. We explain these findings by family firms, especially smaller ones, predominantly attracting investors with a long-term horizon. Such investors are less likely to sell during market turmoil, making family firms not only less liquid but also less sensitive to market fluctuations.

In this paper, we first utilize a dynamic factor model with stochastic volatility (DFM-SV) to filter out the national factor from the local components of weekly state-level economic conditions indexes of the United States (US) over the period of April 1987 to August 2021. In the second step, we forecast the state-level factors in a panel data set-up based on the information content of corresponding state-level climate risks, as proxied by changes in temperature and its SV. The forecasting experiment depicts statistically significant evidence of out-of-sample predictability over a one-month- to one-year-ahead horizon, with stronger forecasting gains derived for states that do not believe that climate change is happening and are Republican. We also find evidence of national climate risks in accurately forecasting the national factor of economic conditions. Our analyses have important policy implications from a regional perspective.

In this study, we develop a novel approach to portfolio diversification by integrating information on news volume and sentiment with the k-nearest neighbors (kNN) algorithm. Our empirical analysis indicates that high news volume contributes to portfolio risk, whereas news sentiment contributes to portfolio return. Based on these findings, we propose a kNN algorithm for portfolio selection. Our in-sample and out-of-sample tests suggest that the proposed kNN portfolio selection approach outperforms the benchmark index portfolio. Overall, we show that incorporating news volume and sentiment into portfolio selection can enhance portfolio performance by improving returns and reducing risk.

In this study, we investigate the impact of academic directors on a firm's performance and decisions in the Taiwan equity market. We find that firms with more independent directors and board size are more likely to appoint academic directors, and academic directors can improve firm performance. The presence of academic directors positively affects firm performance through channels like more capital expenditure and larger R&D expenses. Academic directors with finance and technology backgrounds positively correlate with both Tobin's Q and ROA. Moreover, the appropriate match of expertise between firms and their academic directors contributes to a better performance. However, corporations with academic directors have a higher compensation gap between top managers and employees.