Pub Date : 2025-11-12DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104202
Francesco D’Acunto , Pulak Ghosh , Alberto G. Rossi
We study the nature and effects of cultural biases in choice under risk and uncertainty by comparing peer-to-peer loans the same individuals (lenders) make alone and after observing robo-advised suggestions. When unassisted, lenders are more likely to choose co-ethnic borrowers, facing 8% higher defaults and 7.3pp lower returns. Robo-advising does not affect diversification but reduces lending to high-risk co-ethnic borrowers. Lenders in locations with high inter-ethnic animus drive the results, even when borrowers reside elsewhere. Biased beliefs explain these results better than a conscious taste for discrimination: lenders rarely override robo-advised matches to ethnicities they discriminated against when unassisted.
{"title":"How costly are cultural biases? Evidence from FinTech","authors":"Francesco D’Acunto , Pulak Ghosh , Alberto G. Rossi","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104202","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104202","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the nature and effects of cultural biases in choice under risk and uncertainty by comparing peer-to-peer loans the same individuals (<em>lenders</em>) make alone and after observing robo-advised suggestions. When unassisted, lenders are more likely to choose co-ethnic borrowers, facing 8% higher defaults and 7.3pp lower returns. Robo-advising does not affect diversification but reduces lending to high-risk co-ethnic borrowers. Lenders in locations with high inter-ethnic animus drive the results, even when borrowers reside elsewhere. Biased beliefs explain these results better than a conscious taste for discrimination: lenders rarely override robo-advised matches to ethnicities they discriminated against when unassisted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104202"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145509513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-08DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104190
Quentin Vandeweyer , Minghao Yang , Constantine Yannelis
This paper studies the transmission of monetary policy to the stock market through investors’ discount factors. To isolate this channel, we investigate the effect of US monetary policy surprises on the ratio of prices of the same stock listed simultaneously in Hong Kong and Mainland China. We identify a strong discount rate channel driven exclusively by cycle-amplifying surprises, defined as rate cuts during easing cycles and surprise hikes during tightening cycles. A 100 basis point of such cycle-amplifying surprise induces a 30 basis point change in the price ratio within five days.
{"title":"Discount factors and monetary policy: Evidence from dual-listed stocks","authors":"Quentin Vandeweyer , Minghao Yang , Constantine Yannelis","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104190","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104190","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies the transmission of monetary policy to the stock market through investors’ discount factors. To isolate this channel, we investigate the effect of US monetary policy surprises on the ratio of prices of the same stock listed simultaneously in Hong Kong and Mainland China. We identify a strong discount rate channel driven exclusively by cycle-amplifying surprises, defined as rate cuts during easing cycles and surprise hikes during tightening cycles. A 100 basis point of such cycle-amplifying surprise induces a 30 basis point change in the price ratio within five days.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104190"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145468047","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-08DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104192
Matteo Crosignani , Lina Han , Marco Macchiavelli , André F. Silva
To safeguard its technological leadership, the U.S. has restricted domestic suppliers from exporting cutting-edge technologies to selected Chinese firms. Domestic firms affected by these export controls halt sales to Chinese customers, as intended, but struggle to establish new relations with alternative customers domestically or in politically aligned regions. Consequently, domestic suppliers experience sizable losses in market capitalization, along with reductions in profitability, employment, and bank lending. Chinese firms are more proactive in reconfiguring supply chains, though not without costs. Overall, export controls impose larger costs on U.S. firms developing the very technologies these policies aim to protect.
{"title":"Securing technological leadership? The cost of export controls on firms","authors":"Matteo Crosignani , Lina Han , Marco Macchiavelli , André F. Silva","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104192","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104192","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To safeguard its technological leadership, the U.S. has restricted domestic suppliers from exporting cutting-edge technologies to selected Chinese firms. Domestic firms affected by these export controls halt sales to Chinese customers, as intended, but struggle to establish new relations with alternative customers domestically or in politically aligned regions. Consequently, domestic suppliers experience sizable losses in market capitalization, along with reductions in profitability, employment, and bank lending. Chinese firms are more proactive in reconfiguring supply chains, though not without costs. Overall, export controls impose larger costs on U.S. firms developing the very technologies these policies aim to protect.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104192"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145468046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104189
Mengyu Wang , Jeffrey Wurgler , Hong Zhang
Policy uncertainty can undermine the power of government subsidies to stimulate environmentally friendly research and development. We show that Chinese firms’ green R&D falls as the uncertainty of environmental subsidies rises: Exogenous, weather-driven air pollution variability induces subsidies to fluctuate, and firms in areas with high weather-driven subsidy variability undertake less green R&D and hire fewer technical employees, controlling for the average level of subsidies. Heavy emitters and environmental technology firms are more affected. The results also illustrate how policy uncertainty can arise when policymakers are influenced by conditions that are salient but with causes that are difficult to disentangle.
{"title":"Policy uncertainty reduces green innovation","authors":"Mengyu Wang , Jeffrey Wurgler , Hong Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104189","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104189","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Policy uncertainty can undermine the power of government subsidies to stimulate environmentally friendly research and development. We show that Chinese firms’ green R&D falls as the uncertainty of environmental subsidies rises: Exogenous, weather-driven air pollution variability induces subsidies to fluctuate, and firms in areas with high weather-driven subsidy variability undertake less green R&D and hire fewer technical employees, controlling for the average level of subsidies. Heavy emitters and environmental technology firms are more affected. The results also illustrate how policy uncertainty can arise when policymakers are influenced by conditions that are salient but with causes that are difficult to disentangle.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104189"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145420509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104167
Joshua Blonz , Brigitte Roth Tran , Erin Troland
We use individual-level credit data to study how recent declines in Appalachian coal mining affected household finances between 2011 and 2018. Using exogenous variation in electricity sector demand for coal, we find declines in coal demand decreased credit scores and increased financial distress within two years of coal shocks. These effects cannot be explained solely by job losses in coal mine worker households. Credit score declines and financial distress were largest among older individuals and people with lower-middle credit scores. Our results suggest the transition away from fossil fuels may impose meaningful costs on other fossil fuel extraction communities.
{"title":"The canary in the coal decline: Appalachian household finance and the transition from fossil fuels","authors":"Joshua Blonz , Brigitte Roth Tran , Erin Troland","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104167","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104167","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We use individual-level credit data to study how recent declines in Appalachian coal mining affected household finances between 2011 and 2018. Using exogenous variation in electricity sector demand for coal, we find declines in coal demand decreased credit scores and increased financial distress within two years of coal shocks. These effects cannot be explained solely by job losses in coal mine worker households. Credit score declines and financial distress were largest among older individuals and people with lower-middle credit scores. Our results suggest the transition away from fossil fuels may impose meaningful costs on other fossil fuel extraction communities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104167"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145420507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104188
Magnus Dahlquist , Markus Ibert
We study the equity, cash, and corporate bond risk premium expectations of asset managers, investment consultants, wealth advisors, public pension funds, and professional forecasters. Subjective risk premia vary one-to-one with objective risk premia that are available in real time and countercyclical. Despite their significant time-series variation, several subjective equity premia vary more in the cross-section of institutions than in the time series. This heterogeneity persists both over time and across asset classes. We tie the heterogeneity in subjective equity return expectations to heterogeneous expectations about long-term equity valuations: some institutions believe that the price–earnings ratio behaves like a random walk, whereas others believe in varying degrees of mean reversion.
{"title":"Institutions’ return expectations across assets and time","authors":"Magnus Dahlquist , Markus Ibert","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104188","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104188","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the equity, cash, and corporate bond risk premium expectations of asset managers, investment consultants, wealth advisors, public pension funds, and professional forecasters. Subjective risk premia vary one-to-one with objective risk premia that are available in real time and countercyclical. Despite their significant time-series variation, several subjective equity premia vary more in the cross-section of institutions than in the time series. This heterogeneity persists both over time and across asset classes. We tie the heterogeneity in subjective equity return expectations to heterogeneous expectations about long-term equity valuations: some institutions believe that the price–earnings ratio behaves like a random walk, whereas others believe in varying degrees of mean reversion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104188"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145420508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104187
Scott R. Baker , Nicholas Bloom , Steven J. Davis , Kyle Kost
We use newspapers to create Equity Market Volatility (EMV) trackers at daily and monthly frequencies. Our headline EMV tracker moves closely with the VIX and the S&P500 returns volatility in and out of sample. We exploit the volume of newspaper text to construct forty category-specific EMV trackers. News about commodity markets, interest rates, real estate markets, aggregate activity, and inflation figure prominently in EMV articles. Policy news is another major source of market volatility: 30 % of EMV articles discuss tax policy, 30 % discuss monetary policy, and 25 % refer to some form of regulation. Combining our newspaper-based trackers with textual analysis of 10-K filings, we obtain monthly firm-level risk exposure measures. These measures help explain the cross-sectional structure of realized volatilities and its evolution over time, even after conditioning on firm and time fixed effects.
{"title":"Policy news and stock market volatility","authors":"Scott R. Baker , Nicholas Bloom , Steven J. Davis , Kyle Kost","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104187","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104187","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We use newspapers to create Equity Market Volatility (EMV) trackers at daily and monthly frequencies. Our headline EMV tracker moves closely with the VIX and the S&P500 returns volatility in and out of sample. We exploit the volume of newspaper text to construct forty category-specific EMV trackers. News about commodity markets, interest rates, real estate markets, aggregate activity, and inflation figure prominently in EMV articles. Policy news is another major source of market volatility: 30 % of EMV articles discuss tax policy, 30 % discuss monetary policy, and 25 % refer to some form of regulation. Combining our newspaper-based trackers with textual analysis of 10-K filings, we obtain monthly firm-level risk exposure measures. These measures help explain the cross-sectional structure of realized volatilities and its evolution over time, even after conditioning on firm and time fixed effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104187"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145424210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-31DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104191
Christian Heyerdahl-Larsen , Philipp Illeditsch
Disagreement about macroeconomic fundamentals accounts for only part of the disagreement about future interest rates, creating a “disagreement correlation” puzzle. This puzzle arises because standard equilibrium models with belief differences predict a strong link between asset return disagreement and fundamental disagreement, a link not supported by the data. We address this puzzle by introducing a model where disagreement about future demand for savings—driven by disagreement over the prevalence of patient versus impatient investors in the economy—generates asset return disagreement. Our mechanism produces stochastic yield volatility, time-varying bond risk premia, and an upward-sloping yield curve. Empirically, we construct a proxy for demand disagreement by isolating the component of yield disagreement unrelated to disagreement about macro-fundamentals. This proxy is positively related to yields and their volatilities, and predicts future bond risk premia, consistent with the predictions of our demand disagreement model.
{"title":"Demand disagreement","authors":"Christian Heyerdahl-Larsen , Philipp Illeditsch","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104191","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104191","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Disagreement about macroeconomic fundamentals accounts for only part of the disagreement about future interest rates, creating a “disagreement correlation” puzzle. This puzzle arises because standard equilibrium models with belief differences predict a strong link between asset return disagreement and fundamental disagreement, a link not supported by the data. We address this puzzle by introducing a model where disagreement about future demand for savings—driven by disagreement over the prevalence of patient versus impatient investors in the economy—generates asset return disagreement. Our mechanism produces stochastic yield volatility, time-varying bond risk premia, and an upward-sloping yield curve. Empirically, we construct a proxy for demand disagreement by isolating the component of yield disagreement unrelated to disagreement about macro-fundamentals. This proxy is positively related to yields and their volatilities, and predicts future bond risk premia, consistent with the predictions of our demand disagreement model.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104191"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145420510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-28DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104172
Haoyang Liu , Christopher Palmer
We document implicit extrapolation in investment decision-making that exceeds the extrapolation inferable from stated expectations. Locally experienced returns predict individual real-estate investment decisions even conditional on an investor’s forecasted home-price growth and risk aversion. Moreover, estimates of this experience effect on investment are larger than implied by the combined effect of past returns on stated expectations and stated expectations on investment. We demonstrate that heterogeneous forecast confidence helps explain why many investors rely on past returns over their survey-elicited forecasts. As their rationale, such survey respondents frequently cite intentional extrapolation or a lack of confidence in other belief factors.
{"title":"Implicit extrapolation and the beliefs channel of investment demand","authors":"Haoyang Liu , Christopher Palmer","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104172","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104172","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We document implicit extrapolation in investment decision-making that exceeds the extrapolation inferable from stated expectations. Locally experienced returns predict individual real-estate investment decisions even conditional on an investor’s forecasted home-price growth and risk aversion. Moreover, estimates of this experience effect on investment are larger than implied by the combined effect of past returns on stated expectations and stated expectations on investment. We demonstrate that heterogeneous forecast confidence helps explain why many investors rely on past returns over their survey-elicited forecasts. As their rationale, such survey respondents frequently cite intentional extrapolation or a lack of confidence in other belief factors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104172"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145371061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104182
Lena Boneva , Jakub Kastl , Filip Zikes
We study dealers’ bidding behavior in the Bank of England’s quantitative easing (QE) reverse auctions. Using a granular dataset on both accepted and rejected offers together with an equilibrium model of bidding behavior, we estimate dealers’ valuations of securities offered to the Bank of England. We also recover the rents accruing to dealers from participating in the auctions as opposed to liquidating gilts in the secondary market, thereby possibly causing prices to change. These rents or so-called ”liquidity benefits” are largest in the early phases of QE implemented during the Global Financial Crisis, suggesting that QE may be particularly effective in restoring smooth market functioning when market participants are facing large liquidity shocks. Finally, we document that dealers’ valuations vary significantly with the amount of interest rate risk acquired in the secondary gilt market before the auction and with dealers’ regulatory capital.
{"title":"Dealer balance sheets and bidding behavior in the Bank of England’s QE reverse auctions","authors":"Lena Boneva , Jakub Kastl , Filip Zikes","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104182","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104182","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study dealers’ bidding behavior in the Bank of England’s quantitative easing (QE) reverse auctions. Using a granular dataset on both accepted and rejected offers together with an equilibrium model of bidding behavior, we estimate dealers’ valuations of securities offered to the Bank of England. We also recover the rents accruing to dealers from participating in the auctions as opposed to liquidating gilts in the secondary market, thereby possibly causing prices to change. These rents or so-called ”liquidity benefits” are largest in the early phases of QE implemented during the Global Financial Crisis, suggesting that QE may be particularly effective in restoring smooth market functioning when market participants are facing large liquidity shocks. Finally, we document that dealers’ valuations vary significantly with the amount of interest rate risk acquired in the secondary gilt market before the auction and with dealers’ regulatory capital.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 104182"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145321994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}