IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v145y2022i2p595-615.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Endogenous inattention and risk-specific price underreaction in corporate bonds

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Jiacui

Abstract

Corporate bond prices are slow to respond to default risk and interest rate shocks, as proxied by firm-level stock returns and Treasury returns, respectively. Furthermore, the underreaction is risk-specific: bonds with better credit quality underreact more to default risk, while those with worse quality underreact more to interest rates. The underreactions imply substantial out-of-sample return predictability, and investors appear to be leaving too much money on the table. The results are consistent with behavioral inattention models in which investors endogenously allocate more attention to payoff-relevant (or salient) risks, and they are not explained by traditional trading friction mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Jiacui, 2022. "Endogenous inattention and risk-specific price underreaction in corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 595-615.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:145:y:2022:i:2:p:595-615
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.09.025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X21004384
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.09.025?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wei-Yu Kuo & Tse-Chun Lin & Jing Zhao, 2015. "Cognitive Limitation and Investment Performance: Evidence from Limit Order Clustering," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 838-875.
    2. Scholes, Myron & Williams, Joseph, 1977. "Estimating betas from nonsynchronous data," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 309-327, December.
    3. Jordi Mondria & Climent Quintana‐Domeque, 2013. "Financial Contagion and Attention Allocation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(568), pages 429-454, May.
    4. Even-Tov, Omri, 2017. "When does the bond price reaction to earnings announcements predict future stock returns?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 167-182.
    5. Xavier Gabaix, 2014. "A Sparsity-Based Model of Bounded Rationality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1661-1710.
    6. Bartosz Mackowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2009. "Optimal Sticky Prices under Rational Inattention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 769-803, June.
    7. Darrell Duffie, 2012. "Over-The-Counter Markets," Introductory Chapters, in: Dark Markets: Asset Pricing and Information Transmission in Over-the-Counter Markets, Princeton University Press.
    8. Hasler, Michael & Ornthanalai, Chayawat, 2018. "Fluctuating attention and financial contagion," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 106-123.
    9. Peng, Lin, 2005. "Learning with Information Capacity Constraints," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(2), pages 307-329, June.
    10. Azi Ben‐Rephael & Bruce I. Carlin & Zhi Da & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2021. "Information Consumption and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(1), pages 357-394, February.
    11. Asquith, Paul & Au, Andrea S. & Covert, Thomas & Pathak, Parag A., 2013. "The market for borrowing corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 155-182.
    12. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2010. "Information Acquisition and Under-Diversification," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 779-805.
    13. Mondria, Jordi, 2010. "Portfolio choice, attention allocation, and price comovement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1837-1864, September.
    14. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    15. Kwan, Simon H., 1996. "Firm-specific information and the correlation between individual stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 63-80, January.
    16. Lo, Andrew W. & Craig MacKinlay, A., 1990. "An econometric analysis of nonsynchronous trading," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 181-211.
    17. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    18. Bai, Jennie & Bali, Turan G. & Wen, Quan, 2019. "Common risk factors in the cross-section of corporate bond returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 619-642.
    19. Paul C. Tetlock, 2011. "All the News That's Fit to Reprint: Do Investors React to Stale Information?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1481-1512.
    20. Schaefer, Stephen M. & Strebulaev, Ilya A., 2008. "Structural models of credit risk are useful: Evidence from hedge ratios on corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 1-19, October.
    21. Daniel Andrei & Michael Hasler, 2015. "Investor Attention and Stock Market Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(1), pages 33-72.
    22. Michael S. Drake & Kurt H. Gee & Jacob R. Thornock, 2016. "March Market Madness: The Impact of Value†Irrelevant Events on the Market Pricing of Earnings News," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 172-203, March.
    23. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    24. Cohen, Kalman J, et al, 1978. "The Returns Generation Process, Returns Variance, and the Effect of Thinness in Securities Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(1), pages 149-167, March.
    25. Huang, Shiyang & Huang, Yulin & Lin, Tse-Chun, 2019. "Attention allocation and return co-movement: Evidence from repeated natural experiments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 369-383.
    26. Hirshleifer, David & Sheng, Jinfei, 2022. "Macro news and micro news: Complements or substitutes?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 1006-1024.
    27. Hendrik Bessembinder & Stacey Jacobsen & William Maxwell & Kumar Venkataraman, 2018. "Capital Commitment and Illiquidity in Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(4), pages 1615-1661, August.
    28. David Hirshleifer & Sonya S. Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2011. "Limited Investor Attention and Stock Market Misreactions to Accounting Information," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 35-73.
    29. Hong, Yongmiao & Lin, Hai & Wu, Chunchi, 2012. "Are corporate bond market returns predictable?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2216-2232.
    30. Jawad M Addoum & Justin R Murfin & Itay Goldstein, 2020. "Equity Price Discovery with Informed Private Debt," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(8), pages 3766-3803.
    31. Chordia, Tarun & Goyal, Amit & Nozawa, Yoshio & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Tong, Qing, 2017. "Are Capital Market Anomalies Common to Equity and Corporate Bond Markets? An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 1301-1342, August.
    32. Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Investor attention, overconfidence and category learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 563-602, June.
    33. Edith S. Hotchkiss & Tavy Ronen, 2002. "The Informational Efficiency of the Corporate Bond Market: An Intraday Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1325-1354.
    34. Kapadia, Nikunj & Pu, Xiaoling, 2012. "Limited arbitrage between equity and credit markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 542-564.
    35. Gebhardt, William R. & Hvidkjaer, Soeren & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 2005. "Stock and bond market interaction: Does momentum spill over?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 651-690, March.
    36. Azi Ben-Rephael & Zhi Da & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2017. "It Depends on Where You Search: Institutional Investor Attention and Underreaction to News," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(9), pages 3009-3047.
    37. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    38. Raphael Schestag & Philipp Schuster & Marliese Uhrig-Homburg, 2016. "Measuring Liquidity in Bond Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(5), pages 1170-1219.
    39. Choi, Jaewon & Kim, Yongjun, 2018. "Anomalies and market (dis)integration," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 16-34.
    40. Johnston, Rick & Markov, Stanimir & Ramnath, Sundaresh, 2009. "Sell-side debt analysts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1-2), pages 91-107, March.
    41. Jens Dick-Nielsen & Marco Rossi, 2019. "The Cost of Immediacy for Corporate Bonds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(1), pages 1-41.
    42. Dimson, Elroy, 1979. "Risk measurement when shares are subject to infrequent trading," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 197-226, June.
    43. Downing, Chris & Underwood, Shane & Xing, Yuhang, 2009. "The Relative Informational Efficiency of Stocks and Bonds: An Intraday Analysis," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(5), pages 1081-1102, October.
    44. Stefano Dellavigna & Joshua M. Pollet, 2009. "Investor Inattention and Friday Earnings Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 709-749, April.
    45. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    46. A. Craig MacKinlay, 1997. "Event Studies in Economics and Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 13-39, March.
    47. Green, T. Clifton & Huang, Ruoyan & Wen, Quan & Zhou, Dexin, 2019. "Crowdsourced employer reviews and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 236-251.
    48. David Hirshleifer & Sonya Seongyeon Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2009. "Driven to Distraction: Extraneous Events and Underreaction to Earnings News," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2289-2325, October.
    49. Amy K. Edwards & Lawrence E. Harris & Michael S. Piwowar, 2007. "Corporate Bond Market Transaction Costs and Transparency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1421-1451, June.
    50. Michael J. Fleming & Eli M. Remolona, 1999. "Price Formation and Liquidity in the U.S. Treasury Market: The Response to Public Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1901-1915, October.
    51. Pierre Collin-Dufresn & Robert S. Goldstein & J. Spencer Martin, 2001. "The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2177-2207, December.
    52. Gur Huberman & Tomer Regev, 2001. "Contagious Speculation and a Cure for Cancer: A Nonevent that Made Stock Prices Soar," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 387-396, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zaremba, Adam & Cakici, Nusret & Bianchi, Robert J. & Long, Huaigang, 2023. "Interest rate changes and the cross-section of global equity returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    2. Jiao, Yawen, 2024. "Managing decision fatigue: Evidence from analysts’ earnings forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1).
    3. deHaan, Ed & Li, Jiacui & Watts, Edward M., 2023. "Retail bond investors and credit ratings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blankespoor, Elizabeth & deHaan, Ed & Marinovic, Iván, 2020. "Disclosure processing costs, investors’ information choice, and equity market outcomes: A review," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2).
    2. Michaely, Roni & Rubin, Amir & Vedrashko, Alexander, 2016. "Are Friday announcements special? Overcoming selection bias," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 65-85.
    3. Andrei, Daniel & Friedman, Henry & Ozel, N. Bugra, 2023. "Economic uncertainty and investor attention," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(2), pages 179-217.
    4. Jie Cao & Amit Goyal & Xiao Xiao & Xintong Zhan, 2023. "Implied Volatility Changes and Corporate Bond Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1375-1397, March.
    5. Stephanie Heck, 2022. "Corporate bond yields and returns: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(2), pages 179-201, June.
    6. Guomei Tang & Xueyong Zhang, 2021. "Media attention to locations and the cross‐section of stock returns," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 2301-2336, April.
    7. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Goodell, John W. & Kumar, Satish & Li, Xiao & Pattnaik, Debidutta & Sharma, Anuj, 2022. "Foundations and research clusters in investor attention: Evidence from bibliometric and topic modelling analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 511-529.
    9. Lifang Li & Valentina Galvani, 2021. "Informed Trading and Momentum in the Corporate Bond Market [Asset pricing with liquidity risk]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 25(6), pages 1773-1816.
    10. Choi, Jaewon & Kim, Yongjun, 2018. "Anomalies and market (dis)integration," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 16-34.
    11. Lin, Mei-Chen & Wu, Chu-Hua & Chiang, Ming-Ti, 2014. "Investor attention and information diffusion from analyst coverage," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 235-246.
    12. Ahmad, Fawad & Oriani, Raffaele, 2022. "Investor attention, information acquisition, and value premium: A mispricing perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    13. Cao, N. & Galvani, V. & Gubellini, S., 2017. "Firm-specific stock and bond predictability: New evidence from Canada," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 174-192.
    14. Goldstein, Michael A. & Namin, Elmira Shekari, 2023. "Corporate bond liquidity and yield spreads: A review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    15. Chen, Linda H. & Jiang, George J. & Zhu, Kevin X., 2018. "Total attention: The effect of macroeconomic news on market reaction to earnings news," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 142-156.
    16. Doron Avramov & Tarun Chordia & Gergana Jostova & Alexander Philipov, 2022. "The Distress Anomaly is Deeper than You Think: Evidence from Stocks and Bonds [The prediction of corporate bankruptcy: a discriminant analysis]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(2), pages 355-405.
    17. DeLisle, R. Jared & Ferguson, Michael F. & Kassa, Haimanot & Zaynutdinova, Gulnara R., 2021. "Hazard stocks and expected returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    18. Yi Tang & Yilu Zhou & Marshall Hong, 2019. "News Co-Occurrences, Stock Return Correlations, and Portfolio Construction Implications," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-21, March.
    19. Verhoeks, Ralph C. & Verschoor, Willem F.C. & Zwinkels, Remco C.J., 2024. "Wall street watches Washington: Asset pricing implications of policy uncertainty," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    20. Thomas Gilbert & Shimon Kogan & Lars Lochstoer & Ataman Ozyildirim, 2012. "Investor Inattention and the Market Impact of Summary Statistics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 336-350, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Investor inattention; Rational inattention; Price underreaction; Corporate bonds; Credit risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:145:y:2022:i:2:p:595-615. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.