Pub Date : 2025-12-01Epub 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":"2025-12-01","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}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104170
Colleen Honigsberg , Edwin Hu , Robert J. Jackson Jr.
The regulatory framework for financial advisors is fragmented, with multiple state and federal regulators. Prior empirical literature on financial advisors has largely focused on a single subset of financial advisors, but we create a database containing brokers regulated primarily by FINRA, investment advisers regulated by the SEC or state securities regulators, and insurance producers regulated by state insurance regulators. There is significant overlap across the regimes; more than 40% of the advisors in our data are registered with more than one regulator. This overlap has implications for labor allocation and market discipline. For example, of the individuals who exit FINRA’s broker regime, 79% were jointly registered in insurance upon exiting FINRA’s regime. This could be efficient if it reflects bad actors who transition to lower risk work, but our evidence shows that these advisors continue to engage in financial planning after they move to the insurance side, as over 90% maintain licenses to sell annuities. Moreover, those who committed misconduct when regulated by FINRA continue to have heightened levels of misconduct in insurance. Our findings have additional implications for regulatory discipline. In 2018 and 2019, FINRA proposed rules designed to nudge “bad” brokers out of the industry. We show that these proposals caused thousands of high-risk brokers to exit the FINRA broker regime, but that the majority of these individuals did not leave financial services—98% are currently registered with state regulators as insurance producers.
{"title":"Regulatory leakage among financial advisors: Evidence from FINRA regulation of “bad” brokers","authors":"Colleen Honigsberg , Edwin Hu , Robert J. Jackson Jr.","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104170","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104170","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The regulatory framework for financial advisors is fragmented, with multiple state and federal regulators. Prior empirical literature on financial advisors has largely focused on a single subset of financial advisors, but we create a database containing brokers regulated primarily by FINRA, investment advisers regulated by the SEC or state securities regulators, and insurance producers regulated by state insurance regulators. There is significant overlap across the regimes; more than 40% of the advisors in our data are registered with more than one regulator. This overlap has implications for labor allocation and market discipline. For example, of the individuals who exit FINRA’s broker regime, 79% were jointly registered in insurance upon exiting FINRA’s regime. This could be efficient if it reflects bad actors who transition to lower risk work, but our evidence shows that these advisors continue to engage in financial planning after they move to the insurance side, as over 90% maintain licenses to sell annuities. Moreover, those who committed misconduct when regulated by FINRA continue to have heightened levels of misconduct in insurance. Our findings have additional implications for regulatory discipline. In 2018 and 2019, FINRA proposed rules designed to nudge “bad” brokers out of the industry. We show that these proposals caused thousands of high-risk brokers to exit the FINRA broker regime, but that the majority of these individuals did not leave financial services—98% are currently registered with state regulators as insurance producers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 104170"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145270409","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 : 2025-11-01Epub 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":"2025-11-01","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 : 2025-11-01Epub 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":"2025-11-01","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 : 2025-11-01Epub 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":"2025-11-01","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 : 2025-11-01Epub Date: 2025-09-25DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104169
Yann Decressin , Steven N. Kaplan , Morten Sorensen
Using more than 4900 personality assessments, we study changes in the characteristics of CEOs and top executives since 2001. The same four factors explain roughly half of the variation in executive characteristics in this larger sample of assessments as in Kaplan and Sorensen (2021). In later years, CEO candidates have shown declining general ability, are increasingly execution-oriented, less interpersonal, less charismatic, and less creative-strategic, and many of these differences persist for hired CEOs. We find no evidence of increasing prevalence or importance of interpersonal and softer skills. Executives assessed for the same company have positively correlated abilities, suggesting that high-ability executives complement each other. Finally, we consider corporate objectives and CEO characteristics.
{"title":"Have CEOs changed?","authors":"Yann Decressin , Steven N. Kaplan , Morten Sorensen","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104169","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104169","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using more than 4900 personality assessments, we study changes in the characteristics of CEOs and top executives since 2001. The same four factors explain roughly half of the variation in executive characteristics in this larger sample of assessments as in Kaplan and Sorensen (2021). In later years, CEO candidates have shown declining general ability, are increasingly execution-oriented, less interpersonal, less charismatic, and less creative-strategic, and many of these differences persist for hired CEOs. We find no evidence of increasing prevalence or importance of interpersonal and softer skills. Executives assessed for the same company have positively correlated abilities, suggesting that high-ability executives complement each other. Finally, we consider corporate objectives and CEO characteristics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 104169"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145158178","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 : 2025-11-01Epub 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":"2025-11-01","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 : 2025-11-01Epub 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":"2025-11-01","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 : 2025-11-01Epub 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":"2025-11-01","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 : 2025-11-01Epub 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":"2025-11-01","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}