The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
AFA members can log in to view full-text articles below.
View past issues
Search the Journal of Finance:
Search results: 3.
Hedge Funds and the Technology Bubble
Published: 11/27/2005 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2004.00690.x
MARKUS K. BRUNNERMEIER, STEFAN NAGEL
This paper documents that hedge funds did not exert a correcting force on stock prices during the technology bubble. Instead, they were heavily invested in technology stocks. This does not seem to be the result of unawareness of the bubble: Hedge funds captured the upturn, but, by reducing their positions in stocks that were about to decline, avoided much of the downturn. Our findings question the efficient markets notion that rational speculators always stabilize prices. They are consistent with models in which rational investors may prefer to ride bubbles because of predictable investor sentiment and limits to arbitrage.
The Maturity Rat Race
Published: 11/26/2012 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12005
MARKUS K. BRUNNERMEIER, MARTIN OEHMKE
Why do some firms, especially financial institutions, finance themselves so short‐term? We show that extreme reliance on short‐term financing may be the outcome of a maturity rat race: a borrower may have an incentive to shorten the maturity of an individual creditor's debt contract because this dilutes other creditors. In response, other creditors opt for shorter maturity contracts as well. This dynamic toward short maturities is present whenever interim information is mostly about the probability of default rather than the recovery in default. For borrowers that cannot commit to a maturity structure, equilibrium financing is inefficiently short‐term.
Predatory Trading
Published: 08/12/2005 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00781.x
MARKUS K. BRUNNERMEIER, LASSE HEJE PEDERSEN
This paper studies predatory trading, trading that induces and/or exploits the need of other investors to reduce their positions. We show that if one trader needs to sell, others also sell and subsequently buy back the asset. This leads to price overshooting and a reduced liquidation value for the distressed trader. Hence, the market is illiquid when liquidity is most needed. Further, a trader profits from triggering another trader's crisis, and the crisis can spill over across traders and across markets.