Trillions of dollars are invested through index funds, exchange-traded funds, and other index derivatives. The benefits of index-linked investing are well-known, but the possible broader economic consequences are unstudied. I review research which suggests that index-linked investing is...

This study investigates whether firm opacity impacts the investment behaviors and outcomes of retail investors using the fintech brokerage Robinhood (i.e., “RH investors”). We theorize that higher firm opacity leads RH investors to make nonrational investment decisions. The testable...

During decades, tests have been developed to verify whether the beta is the best tool to explain the returns of securities on the stock market. Moreover, the value of the beta and its coefficient of determination (R-squared) vary with different parameters used for estimating the beta. In this...

The objective of this paper is to investigate herding behavior in the Brazilian stock mutual funds. Through the study of the 100 largest funds of the category, between September/2004 and July/2008, two herding indexes are analyzed: (i) the index, proposed by Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny...

We find that aggregate net equity fund flows are strongly negatively correlated with changes in expected future stock market volatility as measured by the VIX. Implying that investor purchase decisions are primarily driven by returns and sale decisions by risk perceptions, we further find that...

This study examines the co-movement phenomenon in Taiwan's stock markets. We investigate this phenomenon both before and after the inclusion and exclusion of component stocks from the Taiwan 50 or Taiwan 100 indices in terms of changes in component stock returns and turnover co-movement...

This study examines the market-timing performance of Chinese equity securities investment funds during the period from May 2003 to May 2014 using the parametric tests of Treynor–Mazuy and Henriksson–Merton as well as the Jiang (2003) non-parametric test. Based on the non-parametric approach,...

I introduce a general equilibrium model with active investors and indexers. Indexing causes market segmentation, and the degree of segmentation is a function of the relative wealth of indexers in the economy. Shocks to this relative wealth induce correlated shocks to discount rates of index...

This study examines the market-timing performance of Chinese equity securities investment funds during the period from May 2003 to May 2014 using the parametric tests of Treynor–Mazuy and Henriksson–Merton as well as the Jiang non-parametric test. Based on the non-parametric approach, the...