Welcome! I am a 6th year PhD student from the London School of Economics expecting to graduate in spring 2025. I’m currently applying for teaching positions beginning in fall 2025.
Email: m.morley1 [at] lse.ac.uk
Welcome! I am a 6th year PhD student from the London School of Economics expecting to graduate in spring 2025. I’m currently applying for teaching positions beginning in fall 2025.
Email: m.morley1 [at] lse.ac.uk
When Good News is Bad News: Return Predictability in the Right Tail of Mutual Funds
I find strong, negative return predictability in the right tail of mutual funds. Over the entire return distribution, return has positive persistence over the next year. Once funds beat the market by more than 5% in a month, return ceases to be a positive signal and is uninformative about future performance. Once funds beat the market by more than 10% in a month, return negatively predicts future performance. Funds in the right tail have lower returns, higher volatility, and lower Sharpe Ratio than funds that beat the market by less than 5%. Finally, I examine the hypothesis that this predictability is caused by unskilled managers taking zero or negative NPV gambles to increase the volatility of fund returns.
Limited Liability and Bankruptcy in the Contract Space
I investigate limited liability, unlimited liability, and bankruptcy in the contract space in the context of entrepreneurs with credit constraints. Although limited liability is a restriction on punishment, it admits a larger set of contracts than unlimited liability. This result holds for fully liquid and illiquid entrepreneur wealth. Bankruptcy is redundant with limited liability and liquid wealth, although it can be useful for entrepreneurs when access to limited liability is otherwise costly or restricted. Making bankruptcy more generous with illiquid wealth strictly reduces the contract space, harming prospective entrepreneurs. The model sheds light on findings in empirical papers that lower barriers to entry boosts entrepreneurship while more generous bankruptcy has mixed impacts on entrepreneurship.
London School of Economics
The score is my teaching evaluation for the course (out of 5).
Full year courses:
FM431M Corporate Finance
2022-3 (4.8)
FM213 Principles of Finance
2021-2 (4.8), 2023-4 (4.6), 2024-5 (4.9)
FM212 Principles of Finance
2020-1 (4.9), 2022-3 (4.9)
Summer school:
FM255 Financial Markets and Portfolio Management
2023 (4.5)
FM202 Analysis and Management of Financial Risk (2021)
2021 (4.4)
LSE Online:
Course Content Designer, FN2191 Principles of Corporate Finance (2022)
Head Class Teacher, FN2191 Principles of Coporate Finance (2022-4)
Teaching Awards
2024-5 Class Teacher Award
2022-3 Class Teacher Award
2021-2 Class Teacher Award