Do equity investors care about pay dispersion and income inequality? We address this question by examining equity markets' reaction and investors' portfolio rebalancing in response to the first-time disclosure by U.S. public companies of the ratio of CEO to median worker pay in 2018. We find...

We derive new bounds on the rational variation in asset prices over time. The resulting test requires no proxy for fundamental value, and it allows significantly more flexibility in preferences and discount rates than in standard volatility tests. We gain traction by focusing specifically on...

This study investigates the response of stock prices and equity options to negative ESG incidents reported by RepRisk for S&P 500 companies between 2006 and 2021, considering the increasing significance of ESG ratings among fund managers and the widespread utilization of financial derivatives by...

Using a semi-supervised topic model on 7,000,000 New York Times articles spanning 160 years, we test whether topics of media discourse predict future stock and bond market returns to test rational and behavioral hypotheses about market valuation of disaster risk. Focusing on media discourse...

This study investigates the effect of the annual "No-Smoking Day" on the stock performance of British American Tobacco (BATS) and Imperial Brands (IMB) from 1997 to 2023. Our findings reveal a significant negative impact of No-Smoking Wednesdays on BATS, with a moderate but statistically...

This paper develops a complete-market production economy with heterogeneous beliefs about TFP growth. Hiring occurs before TFP is known and is, therefore, risky (operational leverage). The firm's discount factor depends on a wealth-weighted average of investors' beliefs. Waves of optimism...

We find that periods of elevated EPU are associated with higher analyst disagreement, a decrease in forecast accuracy, and a higher degree of conservatism. We show that the decrease in forecast accuracy can be partially attributed to limited attention. A higher level of EPU attracts analysts’...

This paper develops a behavioural asset pricing model in which traders are not fully rational as is commonly assumed in the literature. The model derived is underpinned by the notion that agents' preferences are affected by their degree of optimism or pessimism regarding future market states. It...

Individual investors’ overall return in stock markets decreases with the increase in trading frequency due to factors such as commission expenses, insider trading, spreads, and institutional investors’ high-frequency algorithms. In this study, the relationship between believing the technical...

Technological progress in recent years has made new methods available for making forecasts in a variety of areas. We examine the success of ex-ante stock market forecasts of three major stock market indices, i.e., the German Stock Market Index (DAX), the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJI), and the...