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- Volume 2, 2010
Annual Review of Financial Economics - Volume 2, 2010
Volume 2, 2010
- Preface
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Portfolio Theory: As I Still See It
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 1–23More LessThis essay summarizes my views on (a) the foundations of portfolio theory and its applications to current issues, such as the choice of criteria for practical risk-return analysis, and whether some form of risk-return analysis should be used in fact; (b) hypotheses about actual financial behavior, as opposed to idealized rational behavior, including two proofs of the fact that expected-utility maximizers would never prefer a multiple-prize lottery to all single-prize lotteries, as asserted in one of my 1952 papers; and (c) a simple proof of the theorem (which was initially greeted with some skepticism, especially by referees) that investors in capital asset pricing models do not get paid for bearing risk.
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Bayesian Portfolio Analysis
Doron Avramov, and Guofu ZhouVol. 2 (2010), pp. 25–47More LessThis paper reviews the literature on Bayesian portfolio analysis. Information about events, macro conditions, asset pricing theories, and security-driving forces can serve as useful priors in selecting optimal portfolios. Moreover, parameter uncertainty and model uncertainty are practical problems encountered by all investors. The Bayesian framework neatly accounts for these uncertainties, whereas standard statistical models often ignore them. We review Bayesian portfolio studies when asset returns are assumed both independently and identically distributed as well as predictable through time. We cover a range of applications, from investing in single assets and equity portfolios to mutual and hedge funds. We also outline challenges for future work.
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Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing Tests
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 49–74More LessA major problem in finance is to understand why different financial assets earn vastly different returns on average. In this paper, we survey various econometric approaches that have been developed to empirically examine various asset pricing models used to explain the difference in cross section of security returns. The approaches range from regressions to the generalized method of moments, and the associated asset pricing models are both conditional and unconditional. In addition, we review some of the major empirical studies.
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CEO Compensation
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 75–102More LessThis paper surveys the recent literature on CEO compensation. The rapid rise in CEO pay over the past 30 years has sparked an intense debate about the nature of the pay-setting process. Many view the high level of CEO compensation as the result of powerful managers setting their own pay. Others interpret high pay as the result of optimal contracting in a competitive market for managerial talent. We describe and discuss the empirical evidence on the evolution of CEO pay and on the relationship between pay and firm performance since the 1930s. Our review suggests that both managerial power and competitive market forces are important determinants of CEO pay, but that neither approach is fully consistent with the available evidence. We briefly discuss promising directions for future research.
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Shareholder Voting and Corporate Governance
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 103–125More LessThis article reviews recent research into corporate voting and elections. Regulatory reforms have given shareholders more voting power in the election of directors and in executive compensation issues. Shareholders use voting as a channel of communication with boards of directors, and protest voting can lead to significant changes in corporate governance and strategy. Some investors have embraced innovative empty voting strategies for decoupling voting rights from cash flow rights, enabling them to mount aggressive programs of shareholder activism. Market-based methods have been used by researchers to establish the value of voting rights and show how this value can vary in different settings.
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An Informal Perspective on the Economics and Regulation of Securities Markets
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 127–143More LessThis review uses an economic lens to offer perspectives on securities regulation. We discuss several motives for regulation and highlight some facets of regulatory conflict, competition, and coordination as well as the range of required securities market disclosures. We discuss the roles of economics and cost-benefit analysis in regulation under administrative law as well as “counting” and “line-drawing” exercises and the nature of the “unintended consequences” of regulation. Among the specific examples of securities regulation that the review highlights using economic principles are short-sale regulation (including the economic costs associated with short interest) and enforcement sanctions against corporations. We also note some of the successes (options backdating) and failures (Madoff and mutual fund market timing) of the securities regulator in identifying new enforcement challenges. This review concludes by highlighting the importance of regulatory uncertainty and time-consistent policies and applies this principle to several contexts related to the financial crisis.
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Privatization and Finance
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 145–174More LessThis paper summarizes research examining how privatization programs implemented by governments over the past three decades have changed the size and efficiency of global financial markets, altered the practice of corporate finance in economies that experienced large privatizations, and impacted the returns earned by individual investors who purchased stock in a privatized company. I show how sales programs have changed during the three historical eras of privatization, describe the principal methods that governments use to sell state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to private investors, and examine how governments choose between selling SOEs directly to existing operating companies or investor groups through direct sales (asset sales) and selling stock to investors through share issue privatizations (SIPs). I document and examine the role privatization has played in increasing the total market capitalization of global stock exchanges from $3.2 trillion in 1983 to over $62 trillion in 2007. I show that investors have benefited from purchasing SIP shares, both in the short and long term, and attempt to answer the critical question: What do governments have left to sell?
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Asset Allocation
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 175–206More LessThis review article describes recent literature on asset allocation, covering both static and dynamic models. The article focuses on the bond-stock decision and on the implications of return predictability. In the static setting, investors are assumed to be Bayesian, and the role of various prior beliefs and specifications of the likelihood are explored. In the dynamic setting, recursive utility is assumed, and attention is paid to obtaining analytical results when possible. Results under both full- and limited-information assumptions are discussed.
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Investment Performance Evaluation
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 207–234More LessThis article provides a review of the rapidly developing literature on investment performance evaluation. The goals are to summarize the significant forces and contributions that have brought this field of research to its current state of knowledge and to suggest directions for future research. This review is written for a reader who is familiar with financial economics but not the specific literature and who wishes to become familiar with the current state of the art. Suggestions for future research include refinements to portfolio holdings-based performance measures, a more balanced treatment of costs, and clientele-specific measures of investment performance.
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Martingale Pricing
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 235–250More LessThe fact that properly normalized asset prices are martingales is the basis of modern asset pricing. One normalizes asset prices to adjust for risk and time preferences. Both adjustments can be made simultaneously via a stochastic discount factor, or one can adjust for risk by changing probabilities and adjust for time using the return on an asset, for example, the risk-free return. This paper reviews this methodology and the circumstances in which it is feasible. Three examples are given to illustrate the delicate link in continuous-time models between the absence of arbitrage opportunities and the feasibility of martingale pricing.
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Limits of Arbitrage
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 251–275More LessWe survey theoretical developments in the literature on the limits of arbitrage. This literature investigates how costs faced by arbitrageurs can prevent them from eliminating mispricings and providing liquidity to other investors. Research in this area is currently evolving into a broader agenda, emphasizing the role of financial institutions and agency frictions for asset prices. This research has the potential to explain so-called market anomalies and inform welfare and policy debates about asset markets. We begin with examples of demand shocks that generate mispricings, arguing that they can stem from behavioral or from institutional considerations. We next survey, and nest within a simple model, the following costs faced by arbitrageurs: (a) risk, both fundamental and nonfundamental; (b) short-selling costs; (c) leverage and margin constraints; and (d) constraints on equity capital. We finally discuss implications for welfare and policy and suggest directions for future research.
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Stochastic Processes in Finance
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 277–314More LessStochastic processes arising in the description of the risk-neutral evolution of equity prices are reviewed. Starting with Brownian motion, I review extensions to Lévy and Sato processes. These processes have independent increments; the former are homogeneous in time, whereas the latter are inhomogeneous. One-dimensional Markov processes such as local volatility and local Lévy are discussed next. Finally, I take up two forms of stochastic volatility that are due to either space scaling or time changing. An encompassing discrete-time model closes the presentation.
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Ambiguity and Asset Markets
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 315–346More LessThe Ellsberg paradox suggests that people's behavior is different in risky situations—when they are given objective probabilities—from their behavior in ambiguous situations—when they are not told the odds (as is typical in financial markets). Such behavior is inconsistent with subjective expected utility (SEU) theory, the standard model of choice under uncertainty in financial economics. This article reviews models of ambiguity aversion. It shows that such models—in particular, the multiple-priors model of Gilboa and Schmeidler—have implications for portfolio choice and asset pricing that are very different from those of SEU and that help to explain otherwise puzzling features of the data.
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Risk Management
Vol. 2 (2010), pp. 347–365More LessModern risk management systems were developed in the early 1990s to provide centralized risk measures at the top level of financial institutions. These are based on a century of theoretical developments in risk measures. In particular, value at risk (VAR) has become widely used as a statistical measure of market risk based on current positions. This methodology has been extended to credit risk and operational risk. This article reviews the benefits and limitations of these models. In spite of all these advances, risk methods are poorly adapted to measure liquidity risk and systemic risk.
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