About
- Franco Modigliani Professor of Financial Economics
- Senior Research Consultant, CFM, Paris & New York (2012-Present)
- Member of the Scientific Board of ESRB (European Systemic Risk Board) (2014-2017)
- Smith Breeden Prize, Journal of Finance (2018)
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: Flows move prices, but it is unclear for how long. There will be a big incentive to short. The IPO valuation seems extremely high (about 100x sales).
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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.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
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Comment: The amount sold in the IPO is a small fraction of the total, some $70bn. This is a drop in the ocean for tech firms.
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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.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
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Comment: It's adding information to the SPF and other forecasts, it's like adding more forecasters, incentivized but not necessarily as well informed. but it can only reduce the MSE
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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.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
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Comment: Gambling leads to very well-documented and severe addiction, hence the logic for invasive paternalistic regulation. I would be very hesitant to extend such a regulation until the addiction concerns are documented.
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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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Comment: Waiving the freel float requirement is ok. what really matters is liquidity and dollar size of the free float. if it's there, it can be part of the index
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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.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
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Comment: It will increase the market cap of the index (replace the smallest component with a larger stock), so increase the supply of index funds for index investors.
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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: For banks, large withdrawals/funding dry-ups tend to predict future performance. The same logic may apply here. The difference is: it's not systemic.
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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.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
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Comment: again, it's likely though highly uncertain. These vehicle are quite opaque, though much better capitalized than banks
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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: currently, there are a lot of firm that offer easy-to-use cash accounts that can be quickly move into and out of deposit accounts. yet, aggregate deposits remain very big and do not respond a lot to interest rates, further, it may be hard to draw many people into stablecoins.
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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: seems about right since it's about 2% of the amount outstanding, and conventional demand elasticities.
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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: ambiguous: it lowers the cost of borrowing, but will boost house prices
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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: yes, but it would increase rents.
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