李江远 LI Jiangyuan

Disagreement measures are known to predict cross-sectional stock returns but fail to predict market returns. This paper proposes a partial least squares disagreement index by aggregating information across individual disagreement measures and shows that this index significantly predicts market returns both in- and out-of-sample. Consistent with the theory in Atmaz and Basak (2018), the disagreement index asymmetrically predicts market returns with greater power in high-sentiment periods, is positively associated with investor expectations of market returns, predicts market returns through a cash flow channel, and can explain the positive volume-volatility relationship.

Time series momentum (TSM) refers to the predictability of the past 12-month return on the next one-month return and is the focus of several recent influential studies. This paper shows that asset-by-asset time series regressions reveal little evidence of TSM, both in- and out-of-sample. While the t-statistic in a pooled regression appears large, it is not statistically reliable as it is less than the critical values of parametric and nonparametric bootstraps. From an investment perspective, the TSM strategy is profitable, but its performance is virtually the same as that of a similar strategy that is based on historical sample mean and does not require predictability. Overall, the evidence on TSM is weak, particularly for the large cross section of assets.

We extend the continuous-time hedge fund framework to model the dynamic leverage choice of a hedge fund manager with time-inconsistent preferences. While time-inconsistency discourages the manager from investing when facing high liquidation risk, the payment of incentive fees may induce a time-inconsistent manager to be more aggressive with leverage. For the special case with no management fees, we derive the closed-form solutions and find that a time-inconsistent manager always chooses higher leverage than a time-consistent manager. The impact on the dynamic leverage strategy also depends on such factors as whether managers are sophisticated or naive in their expectations regarding future time-inconsistent behavior.

We investigate an alternative economic channel of a positive relationship between risk and compensation, as documented by Cheng et al. (2015). We propose that when information asymmetry exists, firms generally seek to use compensation as a signal of their CEOs’ ability. The risks arising from information asymmetry tend to encourage firms to pay higher compensation to their CEOs in a pattern of financial incentives we call the “Lake Wobegon effect”. However, when individual firms pursue complete signaling, a higher equilibrium compensation level can be achieved. This paper explores the factors that give rise to the “Lake Wobegon effect” and the learning process by which this effect can be counterbalanced over time (Hayes and Schaefer, 2009).

We observe two seemingly contradicting facts on carbon premium in recent years: a negative brown-minus-green (BMG) return spread and a positive association between realized stock return and carbon emission. We reconcile these facts through the lens of equity duration. The variation of equity duration premium explains the observed declining carbon premium in the short periods since 2004. In particular, short (long) equity duration is associated with brown (green) firms with high regulatory (opportunity) climate change exposure. However, theories (Gormsen, 2021) predict the duration premium to be time-varying. The expected carbon premium may be positive, while we observe a negative realized carbon premium.