Political uncertainty is a key determinant of investment decisions. Specifically, the uncertainty that surrounds government policy makes beliefs noisier and depresses stock prices. In this paper, we explore whether institutional investors "herd", i.e., mimic each other's trades, in response to...

The joint-hypothesis problem casts doubt on the results of market efficiency research. Specifically, it is hard to assess to what extent financial markets reflect economic fundamentals or mispricing. To address this issue, we study price formation in a large virtual asset market where...

We study the role of bilateral political relations in explaining variations in the equity portfolio allocation of foreign institutional investors. Using a large micro sample at the fund-firm-year level, we find that when the relations between two countries become more distant, institutional...

I propose a Capital Asset Pricing Model in which investor demand exhibits a speculative component. In equilibrium, investors' optimal trade-off between diversification and speculation generates predictable patterns for stocks with extreme book-to-market ratios. Using data on U.S. stocks, I find...