Essays in capital markets

Abstract

In the first chapter, I provide evidence that investment-specific technological change is a source of systematic risk. In contrast to neutral productivity shocks, the economy needs to invest to realize the benefits of innovations in investment technology. A positive shock to investment technology is followed by a reallocation of resources from consumption to investment, leading to a negative price of risk. A portfolio of stocks that produce investment goods minus stocks that produce consumption goods (IMC) proxies for the shock and is a priced risk factor. The value of assets in place minus growth opportunities falls after positive shocks to investment technology, which suggests an explanation for the value puzzle. I formalize these insights in a dynamic general equilibrium model with two sectors of production. The model's implications are supported by the data. The IMC portfolio earns a negative premium, predicts investment and consumption in a manner consistent with the theory, and helps price the value cross section. In the second chapter, based on joint work with Igor Makarov, we use heteroscedasticity of stock returns as an identification tool to isolate four robust factors in the U.S. industry returns. The first factor can be viewed as a proxy for economy wide demand shocks. The second factor is a portfolio of stocks producing investment goods minus stocks producing consumption goods (IMC). The third factor differentiates between cyclical vs. non-cyclical stocks. Finally, the fourth factor is consistent with a proxy for shocks to input good prices. The extracted factors are shown to be important in explaining the cross-section of expected returns. Unlike the CAPM or the Fama and French three factor model, they successfully price the cross-section of 48 industry portfolios and do a good job at explaining the 25 Fama and French size and book-to-market portfolios.

(cont.) The fourth ("input") factor is found to be a robust predictor of the value-weighted market portfolio. In the third chapter, based on joint work with Jiro Kondo, we propose a new foundation for the limits to arbitrage based on financial relationships between arbitrageurs and banks. Financially constrained arbitrageurs may choose to seek additional financing from banks who can understand their strategies. However, a hold-up problem arises because banks cannot commit to provide capital and have the financial technology to profit from the strategies themselves. Wary of this, arbitrageurs will choose to stay constrained and limit their correction of mispricing unless banks have sufficient reputational capital. Using the framework of stochastic repeated games, we show that this form of limited arbitrage arises when mispricing is largest and becomes more substantial as the degree of competition between banks intensifies and arbitrageur wealth increases.