Vertical Scope Revisited: Transaction Costs vs Capabilities & Profit Opportunities in Mortgage Banking

What determines vertical scope? Transactions cost economics (TCE) has been the dominant paradigm for understanding "make" vs. "buy" choices. However, the traditional focus on empirically validating or refuting TCE has taken attention away from other possible drivers of scope, and it has rarely allowed us to understand the explanatory power of TCE versus other competing theories. This paper, using a particularly rich panel dataset from the Mortgage Banking industry, explores both the extent to which TCE predictions hold, and their ability to explain the variance in scope, when compared to all other possible drivers of integration. Using some direct measures of transaction costs, we observe that integration does mitigate risks; yet such risks and transaction costs do not seem to drive firm-level decisions of integration in retail production of loans. Rather, capability-driven and capacity- (or limit to growth-) driven considerations explain a significant amount of variance in our sample, under a variety of specifications and tests. We thus conclude that while TCE explanations of vertical scope are important, their impact is dwarfed by capability differences and by the desire of firms to leverage their capabilities and productive capacity by using the market.Mortgage Banking; Transaction Costs; Integration; Capabilities; Capacity Constraints; Limits to Growth

Termination of closed end funds and behavior of their discounts

Based on an extensive sample of U.S. closed-end funds undergoing open-ending, we examine the behavior of discounts prior to the announcement till open-ending. Discounts are significantly reduced upon announcement of open-ending with price increase. Announcement period return is directly related to the pre-announcement discount, and other hypothesized characteristics of the fund and investor behavior. The role of investor sentiments as an explanator of discounts is weaker after announcement. We decompose the pre-announcement discount into structural and idiosyncratic parts, and report that there is a greater reduction of the idiosyncratcic part of the discount at announcement. Time series behavior of discounts lends support to investor confidence. We find that small amounts of discounts remain at the time of the open-ending.Closed-end funds, open-ending, discounts, investor sentiment.

The Geography of Asset Trade and the Euro: Insiders and Outsiders

This paper analyzes the determinants of cross-border asset trade on cross-country data and a Swedish data set. We focus our analysis on the impact of the euro for the determinants of bond trade, equity and banking assets. With the help of a theoretical model, we attempt to disentangle the different effects that the euro may have had on asset holdings for both euro zone countries and countries outside of the euro zone such as Sweden. We find evidence that the euro has implied 1) a unilateral financial liberalization which makes it cheaper for all countries to buy euro zone assets. For bonds and equity holdings, this would translate into approximately 14% and 17% decrease in transaction costs. Using Swedish data, we find that this effect of the euro is larger for flows than for stocks. 2) a preferential financial liberalization which on top of the previous effect has decreased transaction costs inside the euro zone by approximately 17% and 10% for bonds and equity respectively. 3) a diversion effect due to the fact that lower transaction costs inside the euro zone have led euro countries to purchase less equity from outside the euro zone. Our empirical analysis also suggests that the elasticity of substitution between bonds inside the euro zone is higher than between bonds denominated in different currencies. We illustrate this effect for transaction costs generated by the difference in the legal system.Euro; Gravity Equation; International Asset Trade

Wisdom of the institutional crowd

The average portfolio structure of institutional investors is shown to have properties which account for transaction costs in an optimal way. This implies that financial institutions unknowingly display collective rationality, or Wisdom of the Crowd. Individual deviations from the rational benchmark are ample, which illustrates that system-wide rationality does not need nearly rational individuals. Finally we discuss the importance of accounting for constraints when assessing the presence of Wisdom of the Crowd.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure

A simple scheme for allocating capital in a foreign exchange proprietary trading firm

We present a model of capital allocation in a foreign exchange proprietary trading firm. The owner allocates capital to individual traders, who operate within strict risk limits. Traders specialize in individual currencies, but are given discretion over their choice of trading rule. The owner provides the simple formula that determines position sizes – a formula that does not require estimation of the firm-level covariance matrix. We provide supporting empirical evidence of excess risk-adjusted returns to the firm-level portfolio, and we discuss a modification of the model in which the owner dictates the choice of trading rule

Eco-labeling, rents, sales prices and occupancy rates: do LEED and Energy Star labeled offices obtain multiple premiums?

Drawing upon an updated and expanded dataset of Energy Star and LEED labeled commercial offices, this paper investigates the effect of eco-labeling on rental rates, sale prices and occupancy rates. Using OLS and robust regression procedures, hedonic modeling is used to test whether the presence of an eco-label has a significant positive effect on rental rates, sale prices and occupancy rates. The study suggests that estimated coefficients can be sensitive to outlier treatment. For sale prices and occupancy rates, there are notable differences between estimated coefficients for OLS and robust regressions. The results suggest that both Energy Star and LEED offices obtain rental premiums of approximately 3%. A 17% sale price premium is estimated for Energy Star labeled offices but no significant sale price premium is estimated for LEED labeled offices. Surprisingly, no significant occupancy premium is estimated for Energy Star labeled offices and a negative occupancy premium is estimated for LEED labeled offices

Private equity returns and disclosure around the world

We study the returns the venture capital and private equity investment from 221 venture capital and private equity funds that are part of 72 venture capital and private equity firms, 5040 entrepreneurial firms (3826 venture capital and 1214 private equity), and spanning 32 years (1971 - 2003) and 39 countries from North and South America, Europe and Asia. We make use of four main categories of variables to proxy for value-added activities and risks that explain venture capital and private equity returns: market and legal environment, VC characteristics, entrepreneurial firm characteristics, and the characteristics and structure of the investment. We show Heckman sample selection issues in regards to both unrealized and partially realized investments are important to consider for analysing the determinants of realized returns. We further compare the actual unrealized returns, as reported to investment managers, to the predicted unrealized returns based on the estimates of realized returns from the sample selection models. We show there exists significant systematic biases in the reporting of unrealized investments to institutional investors depending on the level of the earnings aggressiveness and disclosure indices in a country, as well as proxies for the degree of information asymmetry between investment managers and venture capital and private equity fund managers. Klassifikation: G24, G28, G31, G32, G3

Understanding Trading Behavior in 401(k) Plans

We use a new database covering 1.2 million active participants to study trading activities in 1,530 defined contribution retirement plans. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis indicate some interesting trading patterns. First, we show that trading activity in 401(k) accounts is very limited: only 20% of participants ever reshuffled their portfolios in two years. Second, demographic characteristics are strongly associated with trading activities: traders are older, wealthier, more highly paid, male employees with longer plan tenure. Finally, we find that plan design factors, such as the number of funds offered, loan availability, and specific fund-families offered have significant impacts on 401(k) plan participants’ trading behavior. Moreover, on-line access channels stimulate participants to trade more frequently, although they do not increase turnover ratio as much. We conclude that plan design features are crucial in sharing trading patterns in 401(k) plans.