The Information Content of the NCREIF Index

This paper examines the dynamic behavior of the NCREIF index. NCREIF total return and appreciation indexes are smooth and exhibit strong autocorrelation and autoregressive heteroskedasticity. We test the information transmission from the NAREIT index to the NCREIF index. In our VAR analysis, the NAREIT index returns Granger cause the returns of the NCREIF indexes. In our ARCH information transmission analysis, the NCREIF indexes are observed to incorporate information spillover from the NAREIT indexes in both the mean and variance of the index returns. The ARCH dynamics between the NCREIF and NAREIT indexes suggest a nonlinear relation between the two indexes.

Illiquidity and Stock Returns

A quarterly time series of the aggregate commission rate of NYSE trading for the period 1980-2003 is developed. The aggregate commission rate is of significant size, captures trading cost, and reflects market illiquidity. Consistent with financial theory, I find a positive relation between market returns and the aggregate commission rate. The impact of the aggregate commission rate on market returns survives a number of robustness checks and is significant after controlling for interest-rate factors, trading volume, and the variability of trading volume. Overall, the findings suggest that market-wide liquidity is a state variable important for asset pricing

The Effect of Bankruptcy Protection on Investment: Chapter 11 as a Screening Device.

Asymmetric information and conflicts of interest between equity and debt holders can force a distressed but efficient firm to liquidate and may enable a distressed inefficient firm to continue. In the extreme, if it is costless for an inefficient firm to mimic an efficient firm in a debt restructuring, efficient and inefficient firms are equally likely to continue or liquidate. This article shows that Chapter 11 procedures impose costs on inefficient firms that would otherwise mimic efficient firms. This separation induces voluntary filing for bankruptcy by inefficient firms and consequently enables efficient firms to continue when they would otherwise be liquidated. Copyright 1994 by American Finance Association.

Commercial Real Estate Leasing, Asymmetric Information, and Monopolistic Competition

We model the choice of lease type, gross lease versus net lease, in an environment in which lessees have private information with respect to their expected intensity of utilization of the leased space, and in which lessors have market power with respect to the pricing of the lease. Unless the lessor can provide operating services at lower cost than the lessee, there exists a lemons problem. We examine a market in which lessors can provide operating services at lower cost. Given asymmetric information with respect to expected lessee utilization and/or damage to the leased space, the lessor offers both a gross and net lease, where the higher expected utilization lessees select the gross lease and the lower expected utilization lessees select a net lease. Lease pricing depends on both the lessor's beliefs with respect to lessee utilization of the space and the lessor's market power. In a monopolistic market, relative to a competitive market, a lessor charges higher rent for a gross lease relative to a net lease in order to extract a portion of the gain from shifting operating services to the lessor. Given the higher rent for a gross lease, a smaller proportion of lessees (only very high utilization lessees) selects a gross lease in a monopolistic market. Therefore, the expected cost savings associated with shifting operating services/provision of maintenance to the lessor are smallest in a monopolistic market. Copyright 2002 by the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.