Zhi De Khoo , Kok Haur Ng , You Beng Koh , Kooi Huat Ng
{"title":"Forecasting financial volatility: An approach based on Parkinson volatility measure with long memory stochastic range model","authors":"Zhi De Khoo , Kok Haur Ng , You Beng Koh , Kooi Huat Ng","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101617","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101617","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper proposes a long memory stochastic range (LMSR) model to investigate the persistence of range-based volatility series. The latent variable in the LMSR model is derived from the established autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average process. To estimate the model parameters, there is no closed-form solution for the latent process. Hence, the parameters of the stochastic model are estimated by applying the quasi-maximum likelihood method via the Whittle approximation. A comprehensive simulation study assesses the method’s performance, with results showing that estimated parameters are close to true values and precision improves with longer simulated time series lengths. To demonstrate the applicability of the model, we conducted empirical studies based on four financial assets, and their volatilities are estimated directly using the range-based Parkinson (PK) volatility measure. The results show evidence of long memory in these volatility series using the rescaled range and Geweke-Porter-Hudak methods. We fit the resulting PK volatility estimates to the LMSR model and other competing volatility models, and their modelling performances are compared. Results indicate that all LMSR models outperform competitors according to the log-likelihood and Akaike information criterion as well as out-of-sample loss functions. Additionally, the estimated parameters of these LMSR models confirm the presence of long memory, while competing short memory models struggle to capture the persistent nature of volatility in financial markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101617"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143917903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creating value through corporate social responsibility: The role of foreign institutional investors in Chinese listed firms","authors":"Yunhe Li , Yu Liu , Mihail Miletkov , Tina Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101621","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101621","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the interplay between two major global trends—the growing role of foreign institutional ownership (FIO) due to financial liberalization and the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an investment ethos. We choose the setting of China, the world’s second-largest economy that has recently experienced substantial growth in foreign portfolio investment and increased its commitment to CSR. We document that CSR performance significantly influences the portfolio allocation decisions of certain types of FIO. Crucially, our analysis reveals that firms with a higher level of ownership by foreign institutional investors are associated with a more positive relation between CSR performance and firm value. This finding is robust to endogeneity examinations, including quasi-natural experiments and instrumental variable estimations. The finding is stronger for non-state-owned enterprises, firms with higher customer awareness, firms with more foreign directors, and firms with more frequent corporate site visits from FIO. Monitoring and advising are two likely channels through which FIO enhance the CSR-value relation. Finally, we demonstrate that FIO enhance firms’ ability to harness the power of CSR as a driver of innovation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101621"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143927581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alfonso Del Giudice, Silvia Rigamonti, Andrea Signori
{"title":"Climate change risk and green bond pricing","authors":"Alfonso Del Giudice, Silvia Rigamonti, Andrea Signori","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101616","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101616","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate whether climate change risk is accurately priced in the bond market. Green bonds outperform brown bonds after a climate-related disaster, consistent with investors adjusting their preference towards green assets. We then examine whether the post-disaster reaction is rational or affected by a behavioral bias. Our findings reveal two key patterns supporting the behavioral explanation: first, the impact of disasters on green bond prices is temporary as it fully reabsorbs by the fifth month after the event; second, the effect weakens as disasters become more repetitive. Overall, the evidence indicates that investors overreact in the immediate aftermath of a disaster and this overreaction fades as the event becomes less salient.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101616"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143903884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Regulatory fragmentation and corporate innovation","authors":"Hongkang Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101614","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101614","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using a distinctive measure derived from the Federal Register, this study examines the relation between regulatory fragmentation and corporate innovation. While regulatory fragmentation is commonly perceived as a barrier due to increased compliance costs and operational complexities, I find a significant positive association between regulatory fragmentation and innovation outputs, a result that remains consistent across various robustness tests. This effect is particularly pronounced in older firms, those with considerable regulatory influence, large market shares, and firms operating in similar regulatory environments. The results challenge the predominantly negative perceptions surrounding regulatory fragmentation in policy discussions, highlighting its potential to significantly enhance a firm’s innovative capabilities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101614"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143860531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The rise of venture capital and IPO quality","authors":"Amrita Nain , Jie Ying , Joseph Arthur","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101613","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101613","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We show that an increase in the supply of venture capital (VC) leads to a decline in the quality of firms going public. We argue that due to VC selectivity, private capital flows disproportionately to the most promising firms causing them to hold back from public issuance. Post-IPO abnormal returns indicate that the stock market does not fully incorporate this decline in quality at the time of the IPO. Our research adds to recent evidence on the negative impact of fast-growing private markets on Main Street investors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101613"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143881783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The influence of long-term managerial orientation on pay inequality","authors":"Chen-Chieh Liao , Yin-Hua Yeh","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101612","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101612","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the relationship between a firm's long-term managerial orientation and in-firm pay inequality. We exploit two exogenous shocks to firms’ long-term orientation, in the form of inheritance and estate tax changes in Taiwan in 2008 and 2017. Using over a decade's worth of pay inequality data, we demonstrate that a more (less) long-term managerial orientation in a firm, driven by decreases (increases) in estate tax, leads to an increase (decrease) of in-firm pay inequality. Further analysis suggests that changes in-firm pay inequality are associated with changes in executive compensation, rather than with changes in ordinary employee compensation. Furthermore, our results are more pronounced in firms with higher degrees of family ownership and firms in more competitive industries. This paper suggests policy implications for amendments to estate tax since in-firm pay inequality will increase as a result of decreases in estate tax, via effects on firms’ long-term managerial orientation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101612"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143739839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bear factor and hedge fund performance","authors":"Thang Ho , Anastasios Kagkadis , George Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101611","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101611","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We find that hedge funds that have low (negative) return covariance with the return of a bear spread portfolio (i.e., Bear factor) after controlling for the market factor, earn significantly higher returns in the cross-section. The return spread does not reflect bear risk premia; instead, it represents a low risk-high return relation. We decompose the Bear factor into different components to identify the one driving the bear beta effect on fund performance and show that the return spread can be attributed to the differential ability of low bear beta funds to reduce their market exposures when the market declines and the VIX increases (i.e., downside timing). Further analysis suggests that these fund managers are more skilled at selling overpriced insurance during volatile market periods. Overall, we propose a simple option-implied predictor of hedge fund returns and unravel a novel economic mechanism that associates the Bear factor exposure with fund performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101611"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143705250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chen Chen , Andrew Cohen , Qiqi Liang , Licheng Sun
{"title":"Maxing out short-term reversals in weekly stock returns","authors":"Chen Chen , Andrew Cohen , Qiqi Liang , Licheng Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101608","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101608","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Subrahmanyam (1991) presents a model in which increased variance in liquidity trades reduces price efficiency when market makers are risk-averse. Motivated by this theoretical insight, we hypothesize that pent-up demand from lottery-seeking investors amplifies their overreactions to news, leading to larger short-term return reversals. Consistent with this hypothesis, we identify a significant pattern in weekly U.S. stock returns for lottery-like stocks, defined by high recent maximum daily returns (MAX). Specifically, high-MAX stocks that were past 1-week losers (or winners) exhibit notably positive (or negative) returns in the following week. Applying a short-term reversal strategy to high-MAX stocks generates an average weekly return of 1.66%, significantly outperforming the 0.65% return from the same strategy applied to low-MAX stocks. This result remains robust even after controlling for market microstructure biases and survives a series of robustness tests. Interestingly, the MAX-enhanced reversal strategy proves effective only when retail order imbalance is in the highest quintile. This result holds across both value-weighted and equal-weighted portfolios, underscoring the pivotal role of retail investors. Taken together, our findings highlight a new channel through which retail investors’ preference for lottery-like payoffs amplifies their overreactions, enhancing the profitability of short-term reversal strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101608"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143715063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
George Kladakis , Nicole Lux , Alexandros Skouralis
{"title":"Exploring the non-linear dynamics between Commercial Real Estate and systemic risk","authors":"George Kladakis , Nicole Lux , Alexandros Skouralis","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101607","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101607","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The commercial real estate (CRE) market significantly influences financial stability, given its size, use as collateral, and cyclicality. This study explores macro-financial vulnerabilities arising from the CRE market, revealing that adverse developments in CRE capital values amplify systemic risk across financial sub-sectors, namely, banks, insurance companies and investment trusts, consistent with the <em>collateral channel hypothesis</em>. The CRE and financial markets relationship, however, displays nonlinearities. We introduce a UK CRE Misalignment index which integrates various market indicators to assess deviations from fundamental values in the CRE sector. We find that during market misalignments, the link between systemic risk and CRE growth weakens, suggesting that further property price increases in an overheated market could lead to a bubble and heightened systemic risk, in line with the <em>deviation hypothesis</em>. Finally, we employ a quantile regression model that captures another aspect of this non-linear relationship. We find that positive (negative) developments in the CRE market decrease (increase) the right tail of the historical systemic risk distribution, but CRE variation has a weak impact on the left tail and cannot effectively reduce systemic risk in periods of growth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 101607"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143601267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tingting Cheng , Shan Jiang , Albert Bo Zhao , Junyi Zhao
{"title":"Is machine learning a necessity? A regression-based approach for stock return prediction","authors":"Tingting Cheng , Shan Jiang , Albert Bo Zhao , Junyi Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101598","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jempfin.2025.101598","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose a simple, linear-regression-based method for prediction of the time series of stock returns. The method achieves out-of-sample performances comparable to machine learning methods while having ignorable computational costs. The key component of the method is to integrate a straightforward cross-market factor screening into the iterated combination method proposed by Lin et al., (2018). Our empirical results on the U.S. stock market show that the method outperforms many state-of-the-art machine learning methods in certain periods. The method also exhibits greater utility gain and investment profits in most periods after considering transaction costs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Finance","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 101598"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143519723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}