We examine underlying factors that explain an exceptionally low stock market participation rate among Lithuanian households by carrying out a comprehensive survey of mass affluent individuals. The probit regression analysis of the survey results indicates that lack of financial literacy, low...

Learning the pre limited liability value process of equity claims and its relationship to the stock price is an answer to the financial jeorpardy question when observed option prices are the answer being given by the market. Constant dollar equity holder values, prior to the imposition of...

This paper provides direct evidence of leverage-induced fire sales leading to a major stock market crash. Our analysis uses proprietary account-level trading data for brokerage- and shadow-financed margin accounts during the Chinese stock market crash in the summer of 2015. We find that margin...

The phrase long-term investing in triple leveraged ETFs is somewhat of an anathema for investment academicians. As a result of daily rebalancing and so-called beta slippage or “the constant leverage trap” it is highly likely over the long term to significantly deviate from the targeted...

A risk-neutral probability distribution (RND) for future S&P 500 returns extracted from index options contains investors' true expectations and also their risk preferences. But the empirical pricing kernel that emerges in a representative agent framework, which suppresses investor differences,...

In theory, investors who have low security selection ability trade more, use leverage more, and perform worse if they are overconfident. We confirm these predictions empirically by analyzing the overconfidence, trading, and performance of retail investors who use margin. Using survey data, we...

In the experimental scenario several agents repeatedly invest in n (n _ 2)state-specic assets. The evolutionarily stable and equilibrium (Blume andEasley, 1992) portfolio for this situation requires to distribute funds accordingto the constant probabilities of the various states. The dierent...

We experimentally test overconfidence in investment decisions by offering participants the possibility to substitute their own for alternative investment choices.Overall, 149 subjects participated in two experiments, one with just one risky asset, the other with two risky assets. Overconfidence...

This paper focuses on egocentric biases in financial decisions. Subjects first designa portfolio, whereby each combination of assets yields the same expected returnand variance of returns. They are then confronted with two alternative portfolios;the average portfolio and the portfolio of one’s...

This paper reports the results of an experiment on portfolio choice in the presence of nontradeable income. The nontradeable income part could either be riskless or risky (background risk). (...)