With two news-based measures on war, I document that managers mitigated war risk through dividend cuts, arguably to establish a war chest. Moreover, I find that companies postponed their initial public offerings and that foreign companies were more likely to delist after the onset of wars....

This paper studies the effect of investor sentiment on the London stock market on a daily basis over the period 1899 to 2010. We use a broad mix of reporting from the Financial Times as our proxy for investor sentiment. The main contribution of this paper is threefold. First, newspaper...

La volatilité des actions françaises montre une forte instabilité depuis 150 ans. Très faible avant la Première Guerre mondiale, elle augmente de façon continue durant l'entre-deux-guerres. Malgré la paix et la stabilité économique, la volatilité n'a jamais retrouvé ses niveaux...

Using a novel dataset where all traders are identifiable, we examine trading in the shares of a major company on the London Stock Exchange before 1920. Our main finding is that bid-ask spreads increased in the presence of informed trades. However, we also find that spreads narrowed during...

This chapter presents historical evidence about Swedish stock prices, dividends, and yields on government fixed-interest securities. Monthly returns are presented since 1901 for stocks, since 1874 for government long-term bonds and since 1856 for short-term Treasury bills or central bank...

This chapter presents historical evidence about Swedish stock prices, dividends, and yields on government fixed-interest securities. Monthly returns are presented since 1901 for stocks, since 1874 for government long-term bonds and since 1856 for short-term Treasury bills or central bank...

For almost a century, we document a significant January effect on the French equity market. We find strong evidences in favor of the tax-loss selling explanation for this phenomenon. Indeed, the January effect was insignificant before the introduction of a “confiscatory tax” on capital gains...

This chapter presents historical evidence about Swedish stock prices, dividends, and yields on government fixed-interest securities. Monthly returns are presented since 1901 for stocks, since 1874 for government long-term bonds and since 1856 for short-term Treasury bills or central bank...

Terrorism is a major issue in the 21st century. In this paper we examine the effect of terrorism on the stock market. We go beyond previous studies to explore the spectre of terrorism on the market rather than terrorist activities. Using a narrative-based approach à la Shiller (2019), we find...

We study the effect of discrimination against Jewish managers and owners on their firms' stock during the Third Reich. The stock of firms with Jewish managers underperformed by around 5% annually, with abnormal performance persisting on average for three years until firm "Aryanization." Firms...