We study the interplay of share prices and firm decisions when share prices aggregate and convey noisy information about fundamentals to investors and managers. First, we show that the informational feedback between the firm's share price and its investment decisions leads to a systematic...

This paper re-examines the standard ‘unbiasedness’ hypothesis in foreign exchange markets, according to which the forward premium should be an unbiased predictor of the future change of the spot exchange rate. If traders are heterogeneous, they may consist of ‘fundamentalists’ who...

We examine the risk-return characteristics of a rolling portfolio investment strategy where more than six thousand Nasdaq initial public offering (IPO) stocks are bought and held for up to five years. The average long-run portfolio return is low, but IPO stocks appear as ‘longshots’, as...

The paper contributes to the literature on integration of stock markets by addressing the issue of non-synchronous trading. We argue that controlling for time differences in trading hours of stock markets is important and show that time-adjustment improves estimates of market integration. We...

This paper undertakes an empirical analysis of the existence of psychological barriers in the dollar/DM and the dollar/yen exchange markets. Psychological barriers occur when agents attach some special importance to the last trailing digits of the price of an asset or a currency. Our empirical...

Stock prices react significantly to the tone (negativity of words) managers use on earnings conference calls. This reaction reflects reasonably rational use of information. “Tone surprise” -- the residual when negativity in managerial tone is regressed on the firm’s recent economic...

Current orthodoxy suggests that the Industrial Revolution began in Europe because European institutions promoted comparatively high levels of market efficiency. This Paper compares the actual efficiency of markets in Europe and China, two regions of the world that were relatively advanced in the...

We investigate the pricing of ‘Brady’ bonds that are issued by the governments of five developing countries as part of debt and debt service reduction agreements. We first present a measure of credit quality that takes account of the individual features of each bond and is comparable across...

Berkshire Hathaway has realized a Sharpe ratio of 0.76, higher than any other stock or mutual fund with a history of more than 30 years, and Berkshire has a significant alpha to traditional risk factors. However, we find that the alpha becomes insignificant when controlling for exposures to...

The media are increasingly recognized as key players in financial markets. I investigate their causal impact on trading and price formation by examining national newspaper strikes in several countries. Trading volume falls 12% on strike days. The dispersion of stock returns and their intraday...