Regulatory and media concern has focused heavily on the potentially manipulative distortion of market prices associated with naked short selling. However, naked shorting can also have beneficial effects for liquidity and pricing efficiency. We empirically investigate the impact of naked...

Using the exogenous shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, we study how informed market participants evaluate fiscal space. Short-selling activity shifted upon the onset of the pandemic towards companies with low financial flexibility only in countries with limited fiscal space. Among these companies,...