{"title":"Feedback Effects and Systematic Risk Exposures","authors":"SNEHAL BANERJEE, BRADYN BREON-DRISH, KEVIN SMITH","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13427","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13427","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We model the “feedback effect” of a firm's stock price on investment in projects exposed to a systematic risk factor, like climate risk. The stock price reflects information about both the project's cash flows and its discount rate. A cash-flow-maximizing manager treats discount rate fluctuations as “noise,” but a price-maximizing manager interprets such variation as information about the project's net present value. This difference qualitatively changes how investment behavior varies with the project's risk exposure. Moreover, traditional objectives (e.g., cash flow or price maximization) need not maximize welfare because they do not correctly account for hedging and risk-sharing benefits of investment.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"981-1028"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072030","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}
{"title":"Worker Runs","authors":"FLORIAN HOFFMANN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROV","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13424","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13424","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The voluntary departure of hard-to-replace skilled workers worsens firm prospects, which can lead to additional departures. We develop a model in which firms design compensation to limit the risk of such “worker runs.” To achieve cost-efficient retention, firms combine fixed wages with dilutable compensation—such as vesting equity or bonus pools—which pays remaining workers more when others leave but gets diluted otherwise. Compensating (identical) workers with differently structured compensation, that is, with a different mix of output-dependent and output-independent pay, can further mitigate the risk of worker runs by ensuring a critical retention level in a cost-efficient way.</p>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"937-979"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jofi.13424","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143639332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crisis Interventions in Corporate Insolvency","authors":"SAMUEL ANTILL, CHRISTOPHER CLAYTON","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13421","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13421","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We model the optimal resolution of insolvent firms in general equilibrium. Collateral-constrained banks lend to (i) solvent firms to finance investments and (ii) distressed firms to avoid liquidation. Liquidations create negative fire-sale externalities. Liquidations also relieve bank balance–sheet congestion, enabling new firm loans that generate positive collateral externalities by lowering bank borrowing rates. Socially optimal interventions encourage liquidation when firms have high operating losses, high leverage, or low productivity. Surprisingly, larger fire sales promote interventions encouraging more liquidations. We study synergies between insolvency interventions and macroprudential regulation, bailouts, deferred loss recognition, and debt subordination. Our model elucidates historical crisis interventions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"875-910"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072028","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}
{"title":"Designing Stress Scenarios","authors":"CECILIA PARLATORE, THOMAS PHILIPPON","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13422","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13422","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We study the optimal design of stress scenarios. A principal manages the unknown risk exposures of agents by asking them to report losses under hypothetical scenarios before taking remedial actions. We apply a Kalman filter to solve the learning problem, and we relate the optimal design to the risk environment, the principal's preferences, and available interventions. In a banking context, optimal capital requirements cover losses under an adverse scenario, while targeted interventions depend on covariances among residual exposures and systematic risks. Our calibration reveals that information is particularly valuable for targeted interventions as opposed to broad capital requirements.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"833-873"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143030913","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}
{"title":"The Allocation of Socially Responsible Capital","authors":"DANIEL GREEN, BENJAMIN N. ROTH","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13425","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13425","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Portfolio allocation decisions increasingly incorporate social values. We develop a tractable framework to study how competition between investors to own socially valuable assets affects social welfare. Relative to the most common social-investing strategies, we identify alternative strategies that result in higher impact and higher financial returns. We identify strategies for investors to have impact when impact is difficult to measure. From the firm's perspective, increasing profitability can have greater impact than directly increasing social value. We present new empirical evidence on the social preferences of investors that demonstrates the practical relevance of our theory.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"755-781"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143020485","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}
MATHIAS S. KRUTTLI, BRIGITTE ROTH TRAN, SUMUDU W. WATUGALA
{"title":"Pricing Poseidon: Extreme Weather Uncertainty and Firm Return Dynamics","authors":"MATHIAS S. KRUTTLI, BRIGITTE ROTH TRAN, SUMUDU W. WATUGALA","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13416","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13416","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We empirically analyze firm-level uncertainty generated from extreme weather events, guided by a theoretical framework. Stock options of firms with establishments in a hurricane's (forecast) landfall region exhibit large implied volatility increases, reflecting significant uncertainty (before) after impact. Volatility risk premium dynamics reveal that investors underestimate such uncertainty. This underreaction diminishes for hurricanes after Sandy, a salient event that struck the U.S. financial center. Despite constituting idiosyncratic shocks, hurricanes affect hit firms' expected stock returns. Textual analysis of calls between firm management, analysts, and investors reveals that discussions about hurricane impacts remain elevated throughout the long-lasting high-uncertainty period after landfall.</p>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"783-832"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jofi.13416","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142974724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Simplicity and Risk","authors":"INDIRA PURI","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13417","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13417","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>I introduce and test for preference for simplicity in choice under risk. I characterize the theory axiomatically, and derive its properties and unique predictions relative to canonical models. By designing and running theoretically motivated experiments, I document that people value simplicity in ways not fully captured by existing models that study risk premia in financial markets. Participants' risk premia increase as complexity increases, holding moments fixed; their dominance violations increase in complexity; their behavior is predicted by simplicity's characterizing axiom; and their complexity aversion is heterogeneous in cognitive ability. None of expected utility theory, cumulative prospect theory, prospect theory, rational inattention, sparsity, salience, or probability weighting that differs by number of outcomes fully capture the experimental findings. I generalize the underlying theory to additionally capture broader measures of complexity, including obfuscation, computation, and language effects.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"1029-1080"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142908524","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}
{"title":"Sustainability or Greenwashing: Evidence from the Asset Market for Industrial Pollution","authors":"RAN DUCHIN, JANET GAO, QIPING XU","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13412","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13412","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We study the asset market for pollutive plants. Firms divest pollutive plants in response to environmental pressures. Buyers are firms facing weaker environmental pressures that have supply chain relationships or joint ventures with the sellers. While pollution levels do not decline following divestitures, sellers highlight their sustainable policies in subsequent conference calls, earn higher returns as they sell more pollutive plants, and benefit from higher Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and lower compliance costs. Overall, the asset market allows firms to redraw their boundaries in a manner perceived as environmentally friendly without real consequences for pollution but with substantial gains from trade.</p>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 2","pages":"699-754"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jofi.13412","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142908534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MICHAEL D. GRUBB, DARRAGH KELLY, JEROEN NIEBOER, MATTHEW OSBORNE, JONATHAN SHAW
{"title":"Sending Out an SMS: Automatic Enrollment Experiments for Overdraft Alerts","authors":"MICHAEL D. GRUBB, DARRAGH KELLY, JEROEN NIEBOER, MATTHEW OSBORNE, JONATHAN SHAW","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13404","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jofi.13404","url":null,"abstract":"<p>At-scale field experiments at major U.K. banks show that automatic enrollment into “just-in-time” text alerts reduces unarranged overdraft and unpaid item charges 17% to 19% and arranged overdraft charges 4% to 8%, implying annual market-wide savings of £170 million to £240 million. Incremental benefits from “early-warning” alerts are statistically insignificant, although economically significant effects are not ruled out. Prior to the experiments, over half of overdrafts could have been avoided by using lower-cost liquidity available in savings and credit card accounts. Alerts help consumers achieve less than half of these potential savings.</p>","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":"80 1","pages":"467-514"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jofi.13404","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142887370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}