{"title":"The alphabet and idiosyncratic volatility","authors":"Okke Bergers, Magnus Blomkvist","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12369","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12369","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We find that stocks with names earlier in an alphabetic ordering exhibit greater idiosyncratic volatility. Stocks whose names are in the first 5% of an alphabetic ordering have 4.5% higher idiosyncratic volatility relative to other stocks. To address potential concerns about early-alphabet firms being different, we study name changes. Idiosyncratic volatility is 7% higher when a name change causes a stock to move into the first 5%. We attribute these results to noise traders being more active in early-alphabet stocks because of heuristic-based investing. In support of this explanation, we find that the effect is strongest during periods of high investor sentiment and among stocks with high turnover. Our results provide evidence that noise traders contribute to the idiosyncratic volatility of stocks.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 3","pages":"569-600"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138580843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Active mutual funds and their passive ETF investments","authors":"Hsiu-Lang Chen","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12368","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12368","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) rather than investing directly in the underlying securities surely prompts questions for mutual funds. Why? Examination suggests the answer is to reduce overall portfolio volatility. Actively managed open-end equity funds (OEFs) that invest in ETFs tend to take short positions in securities and to short ETFs more than other securities. Investigation of the overlap in portfolio composition between OEFs and the ETFs they hold as well as their investing positions in hedging and nonhedging ETFs separately points to the main motivation for such ETF investment—hedging.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 2","pages":"367-399"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jfir.12368","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138569811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Viktoriya Lantushenko, Dalia Marciukaityte, Samuel H. Szewczyk
{"title":"Institutional investors and mispricing of unionized firms","authors":"Viktoriya Lantushenko, Dalia Marciukaityte, Samuel H. Szewczyk","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12367","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12367","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examine investment by different types of institutional investors in firms with strong labor unions. We find that hedge funds own a lower percentage of shares in these firms than in other firms. In contrast, passive institutional investors and institutional investors as a group own a higher percentage. Our tests suggest that the relation between unionization and hedge fund ownership is causal: When union power changes in a firm, hedge fund ownership changes in the opposite direction. Instead, passive investor holdings in unionized firms seem to be driven by other firm characteristics.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 2","pages":"249-274"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138531263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"CEO–board connections and the cost of equity capital: International evidence","authors":"Md Nazmul Hasan Bhuyan, David Javakhadze","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12366","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12366","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, we investigate the effect of chief executive officer (CEO)–board connections on the cost of equity capital in an international setting. We find that CEO–board connections have a significant negative effect on the cost of equity. Our results are robust to alternative variable measurements, model specifications, and potential endogeneity adjustments. Examining the channel, we show that social ties reduce information asymmetry issues. We further show that firm-level operational complexities and investment intensity, as well as country-level developmental attributes and culture, moderate the association between CEO–board connections and the cost of equity capital.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 2","pages":"317-365"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135480391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interstate migration networks and stock return comovement","authors":"Suin Lee, Christos Pantzalis, Jung Chul Park","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12364","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12364","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We document sizable and robust excess return comovement between migration-flow receiving and sending states at the state-portfolio level. Migration comovement is not fully explained by economic fundamentals and strengthens with the size of the migration network. Consistent with the view that it is partially driven by correlated trading of a common investor base within migration networks, migration comovement a) increases substantially when there is an exogenous positive shock to migration flows, b) is greater with old firms in migration-sending states, and c) strengthens when retail investors display “old home” bias in addition to local bias.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"89-121"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135935023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Are stress-tested banks in the United States becoming similar? Evidence from convergence tests","authors":"Destan Kirimhan, Saban Nazlioglu, James E. Payne","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12362","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12362","url":null,"abstract":"<p>US bank stress tests were introduced to improve the risk posture and management practices of large and complex banking institutions. We investigate whether stress-tested banks in the United States converge to each other in their levels and determinants of profitability, as well as their risk taking and systemic risk contributions. Our results are consistent with convergence in profitability, asset quality, management quality, securitization income, and income diversification of stress-tested banks. Our difference-in-differences estimation results provide causal evidence of stress tests leading to convergence in income diversification. Furthermore, stress-tested banks converge in their income diversification strategies, return volatility, default risk, leverage risk, and systemic risk contributions. This study sheds light on a situation where these banks may simultaneously have exposure to the same risks, leaving the financial system more vulnerable to a crisis as a result of the exposed risk.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"61-88"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135974694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Executive compensation, internal control quality, and corporate social responsibility in China","authors":"Junnan Hu, Xuan Lin, Feixue Xie","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12365","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12365","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We explore the relations among executive compensation, internal control quality (ICQ), and corporate social responsibility (CSR), focusing on improving the CSR outcomes of listed firms in China. Our findings are fourfold. First, we document that executive compensation and ICQ have a significant positive impact on CSR. Second, we find that executive compensation positively affects ICQ; hence, we identify ICQ as a channel that can further improve the impact of executive compensation on CSR. Third, we discover that the documented effects are stronger in state-owned firms than in non-state-owned firms. Fourth, we observe that regulatory changes have both positive and negative impacts on CSR. Our findings are less vulnerable to endogeneity and have key implications for policy makers.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"147-177"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135934583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lending and risk controls for BHCs after the Dodd–Frank act","authors":"Marta Degl'Innocenti, Si Zhou, Yue Zhou","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12363","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12363","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We investigate the impact of the Dodd–Frank Act (DFA) on the credit risk behavior of complex bank holding companies (BHCs). Specifically, we assess the effectiveness of the DFA in reducing the credit riskiness of complex banks. Consistent with the moral hazard hypothesis, we find that complex BHCs affected by the DFA increase their credit risk. We argue that possible explanations are that BHCs decreased their lending portfolio quality, loan monitoring, and strength and independence of the risk management function after the DFA. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns, different sample selection criteria, various model and treatment specifications, and placebo tests.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"47 2","pages":"275-315"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135933935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"New ESG rating drivers in the cross-section of European stock returns","authors":"Ian Berk, Massimo Guidolin, Monia Magnani","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12356","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12356","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We assess the performance of two quantitative signals based on ESG scores across a large, multi-national cross-section of European stock returns. We test whether the cost of equity capital is more influenced by the upward momentum (measured over time) of the ESG scores of the firms issuing stocks or by their stability (identified as the volatility of the scores over time), measured around a changing mean level. We find that short-term ESG momentum over 1 month has a significant impact on the cross-section of stock returns, lowering the anticipated cost of capital and leading to positive average abnormal returns. This suggests that short-term ESG momentum may represent a novel, priced systematic risk factor. Furthermore, we find strong evidence that an ESG volatility spread strategy which buys low ESG score volatility stocks and sells high volatility ones, generates a substantial alpha and affects the ex-ante cost of capital. Both quantitative ESG signals result in portfolio sorting and long-short strategies that enhance the overall sustainability profile of the issuing firms without compromising the raw average of their ESG scores.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"46 S1","pages":"S133-S162"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jfir.12356","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136262147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ge Gao, Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, Oleksandr Talavera
{"title":"Can central banks be heard over the sound of gunfire?","authors":"Ge Gao, Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, Oleksandr Talavera","doi":"10.1111/jfir.12358","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jfir.12358","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this study, we examined the effectiveness of central bank communications during times of significant adverse shocks. Specifically, we examined how the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) regulated foreign exchange (FX) markets during the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022. Data collected from both the black and authorized FX markets suggested that the content of the NBU's announcements significantly impacted FX market agents. Announcements aimed at maintaining a fixed (floating) FX rate prompted an increase (decrease) in the black market premium in cash transactions. Moreover, the NBU's announcements influenced the sale side of foreign currency more than any other aspect, an area where the black market FX traders held near monopolistic power.</p>","PeriodicalId":47584,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Research","volume":"46 S1","pages":"S183-S203"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jfir.12358","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135723701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}