About
- John S. Osterweis Professor of Finance
- Associate Editor, American Economic Review (2012 – 2021)
- American Finance Association, Board Member (2015-2018)
- Smith-Breeden Prize, Journal of Finance (2008)
Voting History
Question A: The large demand of passive investors for shares in SpaceX in the days after the IPO will cause substantial overvaluation of the stock.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: Hanno Lustig computes that passive investors represent about 50-60bn of inelastic demand for the stock. With the initial float at 75bn, and considerable disagreement on the value of the stock, we have the ingredients for a Harrison-Kreps or Scheinkman-Xiong overvaluation.
-see background information here |
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Question B: Rebalancing of investors' portfolios to make room for SpaceX will cause measurable price pressure on other large growth or technology stocks in the days after the IPO.
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Comment: Rebalancing will trigger flows that are relatively small relative to the demands for these other assets and the market's ability to absorb the flows.
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Question A: Prediction markets provide substantially more accurate forecasts of key macro-financial variables than traditional sources such as surveys of professional forecasters.
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Question B: Retail market participants would be measurably better off if sports contracts on prediction markets were regulated more like gambling than like financial derivatives.
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Question A: Nasdaq has been consulting on inclusion of the largest companies in its indexes: https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/docs/NDX_Consultation-February_2026.pdf
Changing the rules for index inclusion to allow fast-track entry by extremely large IPOs (including waiving the free float requirement) is consistent with the objectives of passive index-based investing.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Question B: Changing the rules for index inclusion to allow fast-track entry by extremely large IPOs (including waiving the free float requirement) will make index fund investors measurably better off.
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Question A:Some major private credit funds - including those offered by BlackRock, Cliffwater and Morgan Stanley - have maintained their redemption limits, not fully filling all investor requests.
The enforcement of restrictions on withdrawals from private credit funds predicts that the funds will substantially underperform indices of liquid high-yield corporate bonds over the next 18 months.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: The central issue is whether the withdrawals are driven more by liquidity/run dynamics or underlying solvency issues. I lean towards solvency at this point, but given limited data, I am uncertain.
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Question B: Assets in the private credit funds that are restricting withdrawals are substantially overvalued relative to their true market value.
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Comment: This is true almost by definition. The challenging issue is what is "true market value" and how one should factor in illiquidity or risk premia in the valuation.
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Interest-bearing stablecoins, either via direct issuer payments or exchange-provided rewards, would measurably erode the deposit franchise of banks in developed-market economies.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: Alternative deposit products exist currently and yet banks retain substantial value from their deposit franchises. That indicates to me that the central friction is not limited choices. Surely there will some switching, but at the edges.
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Question A: Having the government-sponsored housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities would reduce mortgage rates by more than 25 basis points.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: A one-off purchase of $200 billion is too small to have a permanent impact on mortgage rates. The evidence from both QE studies as well as studies of the mortgage market provide estimates of the impact of purchases, and outside of financial crisis periods, the impacts are small
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Question B: Having the government-sponsored housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities would measurably improve the affordability of home ownership.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: It is a further step from MBS rates to home mortgage rates, and the impacts are likely to diminish even further.
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Question C: Restrictions on large institutional investors buying single-family homes would measurably improve the affordability of home ownership.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: There is some research on the topic, but not enough for me to be confident. The research indicates that in areas where individuals are credit constrained, there is a benefit to institutions purchasing home and rent to the individuals.
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