Separating Uncertainty from Heterogeneity in Life Cycle Earnings This paper develops and applies a method for decomposing cross section variability of earnings into components that are forecastable at the time students decide to go to college (heterogeneity) and components that are unforecastable. About 60% of variability in returns to schooling is forecastable. This has important implications ...

We investigate the economic factors driving the unprecedented rise of corporate liquidities since the 1970s. We document that US firms face higher earnings volatility and manage this increased risk with more liquidities in terms of both cash savings and credit lines. The rise in liquidities is not attributable to the increased sales volatility. The higher earnings volatility along with the fina...

This paper presents extensive empirical testing of the hypothesis that greater post-schooling earnings risk requires higher expected returns. Expanding on this notion, on the basis of utility theory, we predict that workers not only care about risk but also about the skewness in the distribution of the compensation paid: workers exhibit risk aversion and skewness affection. To test these hypoth...

In this paper, we document whether and how much the equalizing force of earnings mobility has changed in France in the 1990’s. For this purpose, we use a representative three-year panel, the French Labour Force Survey. We develop a model of earnings dynamics that combines a flexible specification of marginal earnings distributions (to fit the large cross-sectional dimension of the data) with a ...

Equity analysts’ target price can be decomposed into two components: the earnings forecast and the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio forecast, with the former containing shortterm earnings news and the latter containing news about long-term earnings growth and discount rates. Using a large database of target prices from 1997 to 2004, we document that both components are important in driving target ...

a r t i c l e i n f o I propose a new multi-factor asset pricing model with new-Keynesian factors to explain stock return anomalies from 1972Q1 to 2009Q2. This new model explains the average returns across testing portfolios formed on financial distress, momentum, and standardized unexpected earnings with misspecification-robust statistics. Test portfolios formed on net stock issues and total a...

We examine the relation between firms’ real earnings management decisions and the slack in their net worth debt covenant. Using private debt covenant data, we find that the overall level of real earnings management is higher when net worth covenant slack is tighter. Moreover, we find that this effect is more pronounced for loan-years with the tightest slack, which is a setting where benefits of...

Theory predicts that the accounting information transparency affects credit spreads. Given that one of the putative benefits of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is transparency of accounting information, this study evaluates the impact of IFRS on the pricing of credit spreads in the over-the-counter Credit Default Swap (CDS) market. Using a difference in differences methodolog...