Surging Volatility: An Internet Effect?

This paper analyzes the impact of firmsí adoption of online retailing on their stock price volatility. Given the nascency of the Web, firms moving online are faced with an increased uncertainty in their product markets in addition to fixed setup costs. A simple model illustrates how increased uncertainty in the product markets increases the volatility of the firmís profits and its stock price. Results consistent with the model are confirmed by an empirical analysis of the volatility of stock prices of traditional firms adopting online-retailing. Both the traditional event study methodology as well as the structural break analysis reveal a distinct surge in volatility of firmsí stock prices around the date of announcement of their online-retailing operations, an effect that is absent in a matched sample of traditional firms. More interestingly, the volatility-surge is absent for the sample of firms that moved online prior to June 1998. Ongoing research examines possible drivers and the implications of these phenomena for investors, firms, and regulatory authorities

So What Do I Get? The Bank’s View of Lending Relationships

While a number of empirical studies have documented benefits of lending relationships to borrowers (lower loan rates, better credit availability, etc.), not much is known about benefits of such relationships for lenders. For a relationship lender, its comparative advantage in information gathering/processing yields two potential benefits. First, a relationship lender would have a higher probability of selling future information-sensitive products (e.g. loans, security underwriting, etc.) to its borrowers compared to a non-relationship lender. We refer to this as higher volume benefit of relationship lending. Second, if borrower-specific information is only available to relationship lender, it can use this information monopoly to charge higher rates on future loans. We refer to this as increased pricing benefit of relationship lending. Our results show that, on average, a lender with a past relationship with a borrower has a 42% probability of providing it with future loans, while a lender lacking a past relationship with a borrower has only a 3% probability of providing it with a future loan. Consistent with theory, we find that borrowers with greater information asymmetries (e.g. small borrowers, or non-rated borrowers) are significantly more likely to use their relationship banks for future loans. Although the association between past lending relationship and probability of being chosen to provide debt and equity underwriting services in the future is statistically significant, the economic impact is much smaller compared to loan markets. However, our findings do not provide strong support for an increased pricing benefit for relationship lenders. On average, the rate of interest for similar borrowers is 6-10 basis points lower if the loan is provided by a relationship lender. Underwriting fee for initial public offerings (IPO) with relationship lender(s) as lead underwriter(s) is 26 basis points lower. This suggests that lenders are prepared to share some of the benefits of relationship lending with borrowers

Liquidity Risk of Corporate Bond Returns: A Conditional Approach

We study the exposure of the US corporate bond returns to liquidity shocks of stocks and Treasury bonds over the period 1973 - 2007 in a regime - switching model. In one regime, liquidity shocks have mostly insignificant effects on bond prices, whereas in another regime, a rise in illiquidity produces significant but conflicting effects: Prices of investment-grade bonds rise while prices of speculative-grade (junk) bonds fall substantially (relative to the market). Relating the probability of these regimes to macroeconomic conditions we find that the second regime can be predicted by economic conditions that are characterized as “stress.” These effects, which are robust to controlling for other systematic risks (term and default), suggest the existence of time-varying liquidity risk of corporate bond returns conditional on episodes of flight to liquidity. Our model can predict the out-of-sample bond returns for the stress years 2008 - 2009. We find a similar pattern for stocks classified by high or low book-to-market ratio, where again, liquidity shocks play a special role in periods characterized by adverse economic conditions.

So What Do I Get? The Bank’s View of Lending Relationships

While a number of empirical studies have documented benefits of lending relationships to borrowers (lower loan rates, better credit availability, etc.), not much is known about benefits of such relationships for lenders. For a relationship lender, its comparative advantage in information gathering/processing yields two potential benefits. First, a relationship lender would have a higher probability of selling future information-sensitive products (e.g. loans, security underwriting, etc.) to its borrowers compared to a non-relationship lender. We refer to this as higher volume benefit of relationship lending. Second, if borrower-specific information is only available to relationship lender, it can use this information monopoly to charge higher rates on future loans. We refer to this as increased pricing benefit of relationship lending. Our results show that, on average, a lender with a past relationship with a borrower has a 42% probability of providing it with future loans, while a lender lacking a past relationship with a borrower has only a 3% probability of providing it with a future loan. Consistent with theory, we find that borrowers with greater information asymmetries (e.g. small borrowers, or non-rated borrowers) are significantly more likely to use their relationship banks for future loans. Although the association between past lending relationship and probability of being chosen to provide debt and equity underwriting services in the future is statistically significant, the economic impact is much smaller compared to loan markets. However, our findings do not provide strong support for an increased pricing benefit for relationship lenders. On average, the rate of interest for similar borrowers is 6-10 basis points lower if the loan is provided by a relationship lender. Underwriting fee for initial public offerings (IPO) with relationship lender(s) as lead underwriter(s) is 26 basis points lower. This suggests that lenders are prepared to share some of the benefits of relationship lending with borrowers

KMV Annual Credit Risk conference (2007) hosted at NYU Stern, IRC risk management conference in Florence

Abstract We study the exposure of the U.S. corporate bond returns to liquidity shocks of stocks and treasury bonds over the period in a regime switching model. In one regime, liquidity shocks have mostly insignificant effect on bond prices, whereas in another regime, a rise in illiquidity produces significant but conflicting effects: Prices of investment-grade bonds rise while prices of speculative grade (junk) bonds fall substantially (relative to the market). Relating the probability of these regimes to macroeconomic conditions we find that the second regime can be predicted by economic conditions that are characterized as "stress." These effects, which are robust to controlling for other systematic risks (term and default), suggest the existence of time-varying liquidity risk of corporate bond returns conditional on episodes of flight to liquidity. Our model can predict the out-of-sample bond returns for the stress years 2008-2009. We find a similar pattern for stocks classified by high or low book-to-market ratio, where again liquidity shocks play a special role in periods characterized by adverse economic conditions. JEL classification: G12, G13, G32, G33

Are Women Executives Disadvantaged?

We investigate gender di®erences in insider trading behavior of senior corporate execu- tives in the U.S. between 1975 and 2008. We ¯nd that, on average, both female and male executives make positive pro¯ts from insider trading. Males, however, earn about twice as much as females and also trade more than females. All these results also hold for the sub-sample of very top executives. The results are consistent with the view that female executives have a disadvantage relative to males in accessing inside information even if they have equal formal status. We are able to rule out gender di®erences in dispositional factors such as overcon¯dence and risk-aversion as sole explanations for our results.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63452/1/1128_bharath.pd

Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model

We examine the accuracy and contribution of the Merton distance to default (DD) model, which is based on Merton's (1974) bond pricing model. We compare the model to a "naïve" alternative, which uses the functional form suggested by the Merton model but does not solve the model for an implied probability of default. We find that the naïve predictor performs slightly better in hazard models and in out-of-sample forecasts than both the Merton DD model and a reduced-form model that uses the same inputs. Several other forecasting variables are also important predictors, and fitted values from an expanded hazard model outperform Merton DD default probabilities out of sample. Implied default probabilities from credit default swaps and corporate bond yield spreads are only weakly correlated with Merton DD probabilities after adjusting for agency ratings and bond characteristics. We conclude that while the Merton DD model does not produce a sufficient statistic for the probability of default, its functional form is useful for forecasting defaults. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected], Oxford University Press.