This paper argues that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, stock return synchronicity (or R 2 ) can increase when transparency improves. In a simple model, we show that, in more transparent environments, stock prices should be more informative about future events. Consequently, when the events actually happen in the future, there should be less "surprise" (i.e., less new information is impounded into the stock price). Thus a more informative stock price today means higher return synchronicity in the future. We find empirical support for our theoretical predictions in 3 settings: namely, firm age, seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), and listing of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs).

This paper studies how a shock to the financial health of banks, caused by a decline in the asset markets, affects the real economy. The land-market collapse in Japan provides an ideal testing field in separating the impact of a loan supply shock from demand shocks. I find that banks with greater real estate exposure have to reduce lending. Firms' investment and market valuation are negatively associated with their top lender's real estate exposure. The lending channel is economically important: it accounts for one-third of lending contraction, one-fifth of the decline in investment, and a quarter of value loss.

This paper examines how a shock to collateral value, caused by asset market fluctuations, influences the debt capacities and investments of firms. Using a source of exogenous variation in collateral value provided by the land market collapse in Japan, I find a large impact of collateral on the corporate investments of a large sample of manufacturing firms. For every 10 percent drop in collateral value, the investment rate of an average firm is reduced by 0.8 percentage point. Further, exploiting a unique data set of matched bank-firm lending, I provide direct evidence on the mechanism by which collateral affects investment. In particular, I show that collateral losses results in lower debt capacities: firms with greater collateral losses are less likely to sustain their banking relationships and, conditional on lending being renewed, they obtain a smaller amount of bank credit. Moreover, the collateral channel is independent of the contemporaneous influence of worsened bank financial conditions.

This paper examines how a shock to collateral value, caused by asset market fluctuations, influences the debt capacities and investments of firms. Using a source of exogenous variation in collateral value provided by the land market collapse in Japan, I find a large impact of collateral on the corporate investments of a large sample of manufacturing firms. For every 10 percent drop in collateral value, the investment rate of an average firm is reduced by 0.8 percentage point. Further, exploiting a unique data set of matched bank-firm lending, I provide direct evidence on the mechanism by which collateral affects investment. In particular, I show that collateral losses results in lower debt capacities: firms with greater collateral losses are less likely to sustain their banking relationships and, conditional on lending being renewed, they obtain a smaller amount of bank credit. Moreover, the collateral channel is independent of the contemporaneous influence of worsened bank financial conditions.