{"title":"Measurement and effects of bank exit policies","authors":"Daniel Green , Boris Vallee","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104129","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104129","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study whether exit policies by financial institutions have financial and real consequences on the firms they target, using bank coal exit policies as a laboratory. In contrast to theories assuming high capital substitutability, we find large effects of these policies. Bank exit policies negatively affect both the financing and operation of coal assets. Substitution to other sources and providers of capital appears to be limited. Coal power plants owned by firms exposed to exit policies are more likely to retire, translating into lower CO2 emissions. Exit policies have reduced CO2e emissions from energy production by an estimated 0.62 gigaton.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104129"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144766620","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":"Jensen and Meckling at 50","authors":"Patrick Bolton","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104116","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104116","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article does three things: (1) it offers a slightly modernized treatment of the two well-known agency costs of external financing of Jensen and Meckling; (2) it provides a deeper exploration than they offer of the limited liability corporation, and of optimal control allocations when financial contracts are incomplete; and, (3) it assesses the lasting influence or their ideas, their multiple interpretations, as well as misinterpretations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104116"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144304681","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":"Michael C. Jensen’s empirical work","authors":"Eugene F. Fama , Kenneth R. French","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104119","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104119","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Much of Mike Jensen's research is foundational, including his early publications, which focus on empirical asset pricing. For example, Jensen's alpha, which he developss in Jensen (1968 and 1969) to evaluate mutual fund managers, is the foundation for most measures of investment performance. Similarly, in Fama et al (1969), Jensen and coauthors present the first event study<span>, Thereafter, event studies play a major role in finance, accounting, and legal research. Finally, Black, Jensen, and Scholes (1972) develop a key insight about the importance of interdependence of sampling errors in the precision of asset pricing tests.</span></div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104119"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144341212","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}
Brandyn Bok , Thomas M. Mertens , John C. Williams
{"title":"Macroeconomic drivers and the pricing of uncertainty, inflation, and bonds","authors":"Brandyn Bok , Thomas M. Mertens , John C. Williams","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104130","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104130","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The correlation between uncertainty shocks, as measured by changes in the VIX, and changes in break-even inflation rates declined and turned negative after the Great Recession. This estimated time-varying correlation is shown to be consistent with the predictions of a standard New Keynesian model with a lower bound on interest rates and a trend decline in the natural rate of interest. In one equilibrium of the model, higher uncertainty raises the probability of large shocks that leave the central bank constrained by the lower bound and unable to offset negative shocks. Resulting inflation shortfalls lower average inflation rates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104130"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144669838","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}
Thomas Dangl , Michael Halling , Jin Yu , Josef Zechner
{"title":"Social preferences and corporate investment","authors":"Thomas Dangl , Michael Halling , Jin Yu , Josef Zechner","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104139","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104139","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper presents a framework to study how investors’ social concerns affect technology choices. Consequentialist preferences (disutility from aggregate harm) influence outcomes only if investors coordinate, unless internalized harm is independent of an investor’s mass. Non-consequentialist preferences (disutility from stockholdings) affect outcomes regardless of coordination. Both preferences have stronger impact when risk-sharing consequences of technology supply are small (e.g., highly correlated returns), and their effects cannot be inferred from cost-of-capital differences. When harm is stochastic, polluting firms may appear less risky to social investors. Depending on type and strength of social preferences, this can support or hinder the green transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104139"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144829926","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}
Carole Roan Gresenz , Jean M. Mitchell , Belicia Rodriguez , Crystal Wang , R. Scott Turner , Wilbert van der Klaauw
{"title":"The financial consequences of undiagnosed memory disorders","authors":"Carole Roan Gresenz , Jean M. Mitchell , Belicia Rodriguez , Crystal Wang , R. Scott Turner , Wilbert van der Klaauw","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104149","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104149","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the effect of undiagnosed memory disorders on credit outcomes using individually-matched nationally representative credit reporting and Medicare data. We find effects of early stage disease, years before diagnosis, on a wide range of financial outcomes, including credit card account payment delinquency and amount of delinquent balance, credit utilization among credit card account holders, mortgage delinquency and delinquent balance amount, and credit scores. Effects are pervasive, affecting seniors in single and coupled households, racial/ethnic minorities and non-minorities, and older adults living in areas with higher and lower education levels. Early stage effects are greater among singles and Black individuals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104149"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144866367","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 retail habitat","authors":"Toomas Laarits , Marco Sammon","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104144","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104144","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Retail investors trade hard-to-value stocks. We document a large and persistent spread in the stock-level intensity of retail trading, even allowing for known biases in the attribution of retail trades. Stocks with a high share of retail-initiated trades exhibit higher shares of intangible capital, longer duration cash flows, and a higher likelihood of being mispriced. Consistent with retail-favored stocks being harder to value, we document that these stocks are less sensitive to earnings news and more sensitive to retail order imbalances. Such segmentation of trading intensity arises in a model where informed investors face a trade-off between the benefits of hiding their trades within noisy retail investor order flow and the costs of producing information about the fundamentals of hard-to-value stocks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104144"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144713118","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}
Carlo Altavilla , Andrew Ellul , Marco Pagano , Andrea Polo , Thomas Vlassopoulos
{"title":"Loan guarantees, bank lending and credit risk reallocation","authors":"Carlo Altavilla , Andrew Ellul , Marco Pagano , Andrea Polo , Thomas Vlassopoulos","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104137","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104137","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Do banks extending government-guaranteed loans simultaneously reduce their risk exposure to firms? Using unique euro-area credit register data and the COVID-19 guarantee programs as a laboratory, we find that 1 euro of guaranteed lending was associated with a reduction of 28 cents in non-guaranteed credit, relative to other banks lending to the same firm. Substitution was highest for riskier and smaller firms in more affected sectors and for stronger banks. Nevertheless, banks offered cheaper credit and longer maturities to guaranteed loan recipients, especially more fragile ones. This improvement in lending terms is the flipside of credit substitution.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104137"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687354","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 trade imbalance network and currency returns","authors":"Ai Jun Hou , Lucio Sarno , Xiaoxia Ye","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104112","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104112","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We introduce in the theory of Gabaix and Maggiori (2015) a network structure to capture the complexity of the balance sheets of financial intermediaries, using the Leontief inverse-based centrality. We use this framework in a multi-country world with imperfect financial markets to study how currency risk premia are connected to financiers’ risk bearing capacity. Guided by the theory, we construct a Centrality Based Characteristic (CBC), based on the centrality of the trade imbalance network and variance–covariance matrix of currency returns. Sorting currencies on CBC generates a high Sharpe ratio, and the resulting excess returns reflect a novel source of predictability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104112"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144366474","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 lessons of Michael C. Jensen","authors":"René M. Stulz","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104118","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104118","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper assesses the contributions of Michael C. Jensen to financial economics and to American business. His work on agency theory is the cornerstone of modern corporate finance. He influenced how American business operates by helping make the internal and external governance of firms more efficient. He changed how knowledge in financial economics is diffused both through the founding of the <em>Journal of Financial Economics</em> and of the Social Science Research Network. I question the claim made by some that he recanted his ideas in the 2000s.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104118"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145003840","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}