Search Results
Conference Paper
The asset flexibility option and the value of deposit insurance
Working Paper
Analyzing imputed financial data: a new approach to cluster analysis
The authors introduce a novel statistical modeling technique to cluster analysis and apply it to financial data. Their two main goals are to handle missing data and to find homogeneous groups within the data. Their approach is flexible and handles large and complex data structures with missing observations and with quantitative and qualitative measurements. The authors achieve this result by mapping the data to a new structure that is free of distributional assumptions in choosing homogeneous groups of observations. Their new method also provides insight into the number of different ...
Working Paper
Understanding 401(k) plans
Questions about the future of the Social Security system continue to surface. As a result, interest in employer-sponsored retirement plans and other retirement investment options increases. But the restrictions and rules associated with various defined benefit plans such as 401(k), 403 (b), and 457 plans can be confusing, and these plans have risks of their own. The authors explore these plans and explain the need to view retirement savings as only one part of a portfolio.
Working Paper
Market imperfections
Market imperfections affect virtually every transaction in some way, generating costs that interfere with trades that rational individuals make, or would make, in the absence of the imperfection. Understanding these costs gives us insight regarding the total costs of transactions, where to place them, or whether to make them at all. Market imperfections also generate profit opportunities for entrepreneurs who can reduce or eliminate them. Institutions or individuals who can lower costs tracing to imperfections have a competitive advantage and can earn economic rents until competing firms ...
Working Paper
A discrete choice model of dividend reinvestment plans: classification and prediction
We study 852 companies with dividend reinvestment plans in 1999 matched by total assets to 852 companies without such plans. We use discrete choice methods to predict the classification of these companies. We interpret the misclassified companies as being likely to switch their plan status. That is, if a firm's financial data suggest that a company should have had a dividend reinvestment plan in 1999 but did not, then we expect that it would be more likely to institute a plan than the other companies in the sample. Conversely, if it did have a plan but the financial data suggest that it ...
Working Paper
Variability and stationarity of term premia
Working Paper
A generalized method for detecting abnormal returns and changes in systematic risk
The authors generalize traditional event-study techniques to allow for event-induced parameter shifts, shifting variances, and firm-specific event periods. Their method, which nests traditional methods, also permits systematic risk to change gradually during the event period and exit the period at higher or lower levels. The authors use their approach to study 132 banks that acquired other institutions between 1989 and 1995. The authors find a significant change in the systematic risk of the acquiring firms, significant ARCH effects, and an event period that ends before the date of the ...
Journal Article
Direct investments in securities: A primer
Direct investment plans (commonly known as DRIPs) let investors bypass traditional investment channels and avoid problems such as high transactions costs and the relatively large dollar amounts necessary to purchase certain assets. While no one expects these plans to answer all of the modern investor's needs, DRIPs probably appeal to the buy-and-hold clientele seeking the lowest possible transactions costs. ; This article discusses DRIPs, describing how the financial services industry has evolved to meet the needs of the small investor. The author identifies the remaining limitations on this ...
Working Paper
Expected returns to stock investments by angel investors in groups
Angel investors invest billions of dollars in thousands of entrepreneurial projects annually, far more than the number of firms that obtain venture capital. Previous research has calculated realized internal rates of return on angel investments, but empirical estimates of expected returns have not yet been produced. Although calculations of realized returns are a valuable contribution, expected returns, rather than realized returns, drive investment decisions. We use a new data set and statistical framework to produce the first empirical estimates of expected returns on angel investments. We ...