We test and offer support to Merton's (1987) theory that difference in a stock's investor recognition affects its cost of capital. In the U.S. market, using the breadth of ownership among retail investors as a proxy for investor recognition, we show that a long-short portfolio based on the...

Using local linear regressions based on Russell index reconstitution, we examine how option price efficiency is affected by stock market indexing. We find that put-call parity deviation, a proxy for options price efficiency, is significantly smaller if a stock is at the top of the Russell 2000...