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Discussion Paper
Leader-Follower Dynamics in Shareholder Activism
Activist shareholders play a central role in modern corporations, influencing the capital structure, business strategy, and governance of firms. Such “blockholders” range from investors who actively jawbone or break up firms to index funds that are largely passive in that they limit themselves to voting. In between, however, is a key group of blockholders that have historically focused on trading but have embraced activism as an established business strategy in the past few decades. Campaigns involving such “trading” blockholders have become ubiquitous, increasingly targeting ...
Newsletter
What is Driving the Return Spread Between “Safe” and “Risky” Assets?
Real interest rates on U.S. government bonds have declined persistently since the 1980s. U.S. government bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government and, hence, are considered one of the safest assets because the risk of default is extremely low. More broadly, interest rates on other safe assets, such as highly rated corporations, have also declined.
Journal Article
Preserving Chicagoland's Small Multifamily Housing Stock
On May 22, 2014, more than 75 lenders, regulators and housing stakeholders gathered at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to discuss lending to small rental properties (5 to 49 units). Co-hosted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University (IHS), Community Investment Corporation (CIC) and The Preservation Compact, the discussion focused on causes and potential solutions for the dearth of lending to small rental buildings in Chicagoland?s low? and moderate?income communities.
Discussion Paper
What’s Up with Stocks?
“U.S. stocks are racing toward a second consecutive quarter of dramatic gains, continuing a historic stock-market recovery that few predicted in the depths of the March downturn,” said a September Wall Street Journal article. “The stock market is detached from economic reality. A reckoning is coming,” said the Washington Post. What is going on? In this post, I look not at what stocks have actually done or will do, but at what investors expected should have happened, and what they expect will happen going forward. It turns out that, at least by the particular measure of expectations I ...
Discussion Paper
What Can We Learn from Prior Periods of Low Volatility?
Volatility, a measure of how much financial markets are fluctuating, has been near its record low in many asset classes. Over the last few decades, there have been only two other periods of similarly low volatility: in May 2013, and prior to the financial crisis in 2007. Is there anything we can learn from the recent period of low volatility versus what occurred slightly more than one year ago and seven years ago? Probably; the current volatility environment appears quite similar to the one in May 2013, but it?s substantially different from what happened prior to the financial crisis.
Discussion Paper
A Way With Words: The Economics of the Fed’s Press Conference
When central bankers speak, traders, journalists, and politicians listen with bated breath. The marked asset price reaction to Chairman Bernanke’s June press conference confirms the importance of his comments in the marketplace.
Working Paper
Why Has U.S. Stock Ownership Doubled Since the Early 1980s? Equity Participation Over the Past Half Century
The U.S. stock ownership rate doubled between 1983 and 2001 but remains below predictions of some equity participation models. Consistent with calibration studies by Heaton and Lucas (2000) and Gomes and Michaelides (2005), mutual fund costs and indicators of background labor risk are significantly related to stock ownership over 1964-2019. Coefficient estimates and continuous data on driving variables can be used to create a continuous proxy for stock ownership, which could help researchers gauge the effects of shocks that are transmitted via equity participation. Typically omitted asset ...
Journal Article
The Value of Loyal Customers
Is there a rational reason that stock prices in some industries greatly exceed book values? The answer may lie in the idea that customers are capital.