Pub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104156
Matthew Denes , Spyridon Lagaras , Margarita Tsoutsoura
Platform intermediation of goods and services has considerably transformed the U.S. economy. We use administrative data on U.S. tax returns to study the role of the gig economy on entrepreneurship. We find that gig workers are more likely to become entrepreneurs, particularly those who are lower income, younger, and benefit from flexibility. We track all newly created firms and show that gig workers start firms in similar industries as their gig experience, which are less likely to survive and demonstrate higher performance. Overall, our findings suggest on-the-job learning promotes entrepreneurial entry and shifts the types of firms started by entrepreneurs.
{"title":"Entrepreneurship and the gig economy: Evidence from U.S. tax returns","authors":"Matthew Denes , Spyridon Lagaras , Margarita Tsoutsoura","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104156","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104156","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Platform intermediation of goods and services has considerably transformed the U.S. economy. We use administrative data on U.S. tax returns to study the role of the gig economy on entrepreneurship. We find that gig workers are more likely to become entrepreneurs, particularly those who are lower income, younger, and benefit from flexibility. We track all newly created firms and show that gig workers start firms in similar industries as their gig experience, which are less likely to survive and demonstrate higher performance. Overall, our findings suggest on-the-job learning promotes entrepreneurial entry and shifts the types of firms started by entrepreneurs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104156"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145049572","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 : 2025-09-11DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104145
Pedro Bordalo , Nicola Gennaioli , Rafael La Porta , Andrei Shleifer
We address the joint hypothesis problem in cross-sectional asset pricing by using measured analyst expectations of earnings growth. We construct a firm-level measure of Expectations Based Returns (EBRs) that uses analyst forecast errors and revisions and shuts down any cross-sectional differences in required returns. We obtain three results. First, variation in EBRs accounts for a large chunk of cross-sectional return spreads in value, investment, size, and momentum factors. Second, time variation in these spreads is predictable from that in EBRs, holding constant scaled price variables (as proxies for time varying required returns). Third, firm characteristics often seen as capturing risk premia predict disappointment of expectations and low EBRs. Overall, return spreads typically attributed to exotic risk factors are explained by predictable movements in non-rational expectations of firms’ earnings growth.
{"title":"Finance without exotic risk","authors":"Pedro Bordalo , Nicola Gennaioli , Rafael La Porta , Andrei Shleifer","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104145","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104145","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We address the joint hypothesis problem in cross-sectional asset pricing by using measured analyst expectations of earnings growth. We construct a firm-level measure of Expectations Based Returns (EBRs) that uses analyst forecast errors and revisions and shuts down any cross-sectional differences in required returns. We obtain three results. First, variation in EBRs accounts for a large chunk of cross-sectional return spreads in value, investment, size, and momentum factors. Second, time variation in these spreads is predictable from that in EBRs, holding constant scaled price variables (as proxies for time varying required returns). Third, firm characteristics often seen as capturing risk premia predict disappointment of expectations and low EBRs. Overall, return spreads typically attributed to exotic risk factors are explained by predictable movements in non-rational expectations of firms’ earnings growth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104145"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145049571","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 : 2025-09-10DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104166
Philip Schnorpfeil , Michael Weber , Andreas Hackethal
We study how investors respond to inflation combining a customized survey experiment with trading data at a time of historically high inflation. Investors’ beliefs about the stock return–inflation relation are very heterogeneous in the cross section and on average too optimistic. Moreover, many investors appear unaware of inflation-hedging strategies despite being otherwise well-informed about prevailing inflation rates and asset returns. Consequently, whereas exogenous shifts in inflation expectations do not impact return expectations, information on past returns during periods of high inflation leads to negative updating about the perceived stock-return impact of inflation, which feeds into return expectations and subsequent actual trading behavior.
{"title":"Inflation and Trading","authors":"Philip Schnorpfeil , Michael Weber , Andreas Hackethal","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104166","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104166","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study how investors respond to inflation combining a customized survey experiment with trading data at a time of historically high inflation. Investors’ beliefs about the stock return–inflation relation are very heterogeneous in the cross section and on average too optimistic. Moreover, many investors appear unaware of inflation-hedging strategies despite being otherwise well-informed about prevailing inflation rates and asset returns. Consequently, whereas exogenous shifts in inflation expectations do not impact return expectations, information on past returns during periods of high inflation leads to negative updating about the perceived stock-return impact of inflation, which feeds into return expectations and subsequent actual trading behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104166"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145049570","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 : 2025-09-08DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104152
Otto Randl, Giorgia Simion, Josef Zechner
This paper derives a stochastic discount factor for currency-hedged government bonds of developed markets by projecting returns onto the unconditional mean–variance efficient (UMVE) portfolio. Priced risks of international bonds differ fundamentally from those of currencies. The UMVE portfolio achieves a Sharpe ratio over twice the average of individual markets, with the market price of risk peaking during crises and periods with high inflation dispersion. While bond returns exhibit a strong factor structure, common sources of variation are only weakly connected to priced risks. Hedging unpriced risks in naive or factor-based strategies significantly improves Sharpe ratios, even under portfolio weight constraints.
{"title":"Pricing and constructing international government bond portfolios","authors":"Otto Randl, Giorgia Simion, Josef Zechner","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104152","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104152","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper derives a stochastic discount factor for currency-hedged government bonds of developed markets by projecting returns onto the unconditional mean–variance efficient (UMVE) portfolio. Priced risks of international bonds differ fundamentally from those of currencies. The UMVE portfolio achieves a Sharpe ratio over twice the average of individual markets, with the market price of risk peaking during crises and periods with high inflation dispersion. While bond returns exhibit a strong factor structure, common sources of variation are only weakly connected to priced risks. Hedging unpriced risks in naive or factor-based strategies significantly improves Sharpe ratios, even under portfolio weight constraints.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104152"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145009251","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 : 2025-09-04DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104150
Sehoon Kim , Nitish Kumar , Jongsub Lee , Junho Oh
Firms increasingly borrow via sustainability-linked loans (SLLs), contractually tying spreads to their ESG performance. SLLs vary widely in transparency of disclosure regarding sustainability-related contract details and tend to be issued to borrowers with superior ESG profiles. While high-transparency SLL borrowers maintain this performance, low-transparency SLL borrowers exhibit significantly deteriorating ESG performance after issuance. Both high- and low-transparency borrowers pay substantial fees to obtain SLLs. The results are consistent with high-transparency borrowers using SLLs to “certify” their preexisting ESG commitments, but low-transparency borrowers “greenwashing” with empty SLL labels. Evidence on drawdowns, renegotiations, and stock market reactions further supports these interpretations.
{"title":"ESG lending","authors":"Sehoon Kim , Nitish Kumar , Jongsub Lee , Junho Oh","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104150","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104150","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Firms increasingly borrow via sustainability-linked loans (SLLs), contractually tying spreads to their ESG performance. SLLs vary widely in transparency of disclosure regarding sustainability-related contract details and tend to be issued to borrowers with superior ESG profiles. While high-transparency SLL borrowers maintain this performance, low-transparency SLL borrowers exhibit significantly deteriorating ESG performance after issuance. Both high- and low-transparency borrowers pay substantial fees to obtain SLLs. The results are consistent with high-transparency borrowers using SLLs to “certify” their preexisting ESG commitments, but low-transparency borrowers “greenwashing” with empty SLL labels. Evidence on drawdowns, renegotiations, and stock market reactions further supports these interpretations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104150"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144988885","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 : 2025-09-01DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104142
Arpit Gupta , Christopher Hansman , Pierre Mabille
We show that financial constraints lead to spatial misallocation and contribute to racial disparities in housing and wealth accumulation. Using bunching and difference-in-differences designs, we document that down payment constraints disproportionately limit the ability of Black households to access housing in high-opportunity areas. We build a dynamic life-cycle model to examine the long-term wealth effects of these leverage distortions on group differences in wealth accumulation. Black households are more affected by financial and spatial frictions, limiting wealth building opportunities. Improving mortgage access and housing supply in high-opportunity areas helps reduce racial wealth disparities, emphasizing the need for access to geographic opportunities rather than homeownership alone.
{"title":"Financial constraints and the racial housing gap","authors":"Arpit Gupta , Christopher Hansman , Pierre Mabille","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104142","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104142","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We show that financial constraints lead to spatial misallocation and contribute to racial disparities in housing and wealth accumulation. Using bunching and difference-in-differences designs, we document that down payment constraints disproportionately limit the ability of Black households to access housing in high-opportunity areas. We build a dynamic life-cycle model to examine the long-term wealth effects of these leverage distortions on group differences in wealth accumulation. Black households are more affected by financial and spatial frictions, limiting wealth building opportunities. Improving mortgage access and housing supply in high-opportunity areas helps reduce racial wealth disparities, emphasizing the need for access to geographic opportunities rather than homeownership alone.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104142"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144921192","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 : 2025-08-29DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104157
Carlos F. Avenancio-León , Alessio Piccolo , Roberto Pinto
A central finding of the theoretical literature on bargaining is that parties’ attitudes towards delay influence bargaining outcomes. However, the ability to endure delays, resilience, is often private information and hard to measure in most real-world contexts. In the context of collective bargaining, we show firms actively attempt to become financially resilient in anticipation of labor negotiations. Firms adjust their financial resilience to respond to the passage of right-to-work laws (RWLs). Unions’ financial structure also responds to RWLs. Our findings suggest resilience is key to understanding the process through which collective bargaining determines wages.
{"title":"Resilience in collective bargaining","authors":"Carlos F. Avenancio-León , Alessio Piccolo , Roberto Pinto","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104157","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104157","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A central finding of the theoretical literature on bargaining is that parties’ attitudes towards delay influence bargaining outcomes. However, the ability to endure delays, resilience, is often private information and hard to measure in most real-world contexts. In the context of collective bargaining, we show firms actively attempt to become <em>financially</em> resilient in anticipation of labor negotiations. Firms adjust their financial resilience to respond to the passage of right-to-work laws (RWLs). Unions’ financial structure also responds to RWLs. Our findings suggest resilience is key to understanding the process through which collective bargaining determines wages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104157"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144912235","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 : 2025-08-27DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104154
Daniel Andrei , Michael Hasler
We model how investor learning about monetary-policy transmission impacts asset prices. In an asset-pricing model, investors learn from realized inflation surprises how effectively monetary policy steers future inflation. Downward revisions in perceived effectiveness raise expected inflation persistence, increasing return volatility and risk premia. These effects intensify when policy deviates significantly from neutral or monetary-transmission uncertainty is high. We estimate the model using U.S. macro and policy data from 1954 to 2023. The resulting dynamics align with observed patterns in equity returns and volatility. Empirical tests support the model’s core prediction: investor learning turns central-bank credibility into a priced risk factor.
{"title":"Investor learning about monetary-policy transmission and the stock market","authors":"Daniel Andrei , Michael Hasler","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104154","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104154","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We model how investor learning about monetary-policy transmission impacts asset prices. In an asset-pricing model, investors learn from realized inflation surprises how effectively monetary policy steers future inflation. Downward revisions in perceived effectiveness raise expected inflation persistence, increasing return volatility and risk premia. These effects intensify when policy deviates significantly from neutral or monetary-transmission uncertainty is high. We estimate the model using U.S. macro and policy data from 1954 to 2023. The resulting dynamics align with observed patterns in equity returns and volatility. Empirical tests support the model’s core prediction: investor learning turns central-bank credibility into a priced risk factor.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104154"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144912234","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 : 2025-08-19DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104149
Carole Roan Gresenz , Jean M. Mitchell , Belicia Rodriguez , Crystal Wang , R. Scott Turner , Wilbert van der Klaauw
We examine the effect of undiagnosed memory disorders on credit outcomes using individually-matched nationally representative credit reporting and Medicare data. We find effects of early stage disease, years before diagnosis, on a wide range of financial outcomes, including credit card account payment delinquency and amount of delinquent balance, credit utilization among credit card account holders, mortgage delinquency and delinquent balance amount, and credit scores. Effects are pervasive, affecting seniors in single and coupled households, racial/ethnic minorities and non-minorities, and older adults living in areas with higher and lower education levels. Early stage effects are greater among singles and Black individuals.
{"title":"The financial consequences of undiagnosed memory disorders","authors":"Carole Roan Gresenz , Jean M. Mitchell , Belicia Rodriguez , Crystal Wang , R. Scott Turner , Wilbert van der Klaauw","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104149","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104149","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the effect of undiagnosed memory disorders on credit outcomes using individually-matched nationally representative credit reporting and Medicare data. We find effects of early stage disease, years before diagnosis, on a wide range of financial outcomes, including credit card account payment delinquency and amount of delinquent balance, credit utilization among credit card account holders, mortgage delinquency and delinquent balance amount, and credit scores. Effects are pervasive, affecting seniors in single and coupled households, racial/ethnic minorities and non-minorities, and older adults living in areas with higher and lower education levels. Early stage effects are greater among singles and Black individuals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104149"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144866367","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 : 2025-08-19DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104155
Amit Goyal , Adam V. Reed , Esad Smajlbegovic , Amar Soebhag
Short sellers are widely known to be informed, which would typically suggest that they demand liquidity. We obtain comprehensive transaction-level data to decompose daily short volume into liquidity-demanding and liquidity-supplying components. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we show that the most informed short sellers are actually liquidity suppliers, not liquidity demanders. They are particularly informative about future returns on news days and trade on prominent cross-sectional return anomalies. Our analysis suggests that market making and opportunistic risk-bearing are unlikely to explain these findings. Instead, our results align with recent market microstructure theory, pointing to strategic liquidity provision by informed traders.
{"title":"Stealthy shorts: Informed liquidity supply","authors":"Amit Goyal , Adam V. Reed , Esad Smajlbegovic , Amar Soebhag","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104155","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104155","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Short sellers are widely known to be informed, which would typically suggest that they demand liquidity. We obtain comprehensive transaction-level data to decompose daily short volume into liquidity-demanding and liquidity-supplying components. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we show that the most informed short sellers are actually liquidity suppliers, not liquidity demanders. They are particularly informative about future returns on news days and trade on prominent cross-sectional return anomalies. Our analysis suggests that market making and opportunistic risk-bearing are unlikely to explain these findings. Instead, our results align with recent market microstructure theory, pointing to strategic liquidity provision by informed traders.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104155"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144866368","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}