We make use of predicted social and civic activities (social capital) to account for selection into "social" occupations. Individual selection accounts for more than the total difference in wages observed between social and nonsocial occupations. The role that individual social capital plays in...

A healthy financial system encourages the efficient allocation of capital and risk. The collapse of the house price bubble led to the financial crisis that started in 2007. There is a large empirical literature concerning the relation between asset price bubbles and financial crises. I evaluate...

Putting an end to the “earnings game” requires that CEOs reclaim the initiative by avoiding earnings guidance and managing expectations in such a way that their stocks trade reasonably close to their intrinsic value. In place of earnings forecasts, management should provide information about...

We investigate and test hypotheses on how informed trading varies with market-wide factors and the structural and trading characteristics of a firm. We find strong evidence of commonality in informed trading, and a systematic dependence of informed trading on firm characteristics that is largely...

This study examines the effect of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) on information uncertainty in IPO firms. The JOBS Act creates a new category of issuer, the Emerging Growth Company (EGC), and exempts EGCs from several disclosures required for non-EGCs. Our findings are...

Using a new daily dataset for all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange between 1905 and 1910, we study the impact of information asymmetry during the liquidity freeze and market run of October 1907 - one of the most severe financial crises of the 20th century. We estimate that the market...

We study the impact of private information on volatility in financial markets. We develop a comprehensive framework to investigate this link while controlling for the effects of both public information (such as macroeconomic news releases) and private information on prices and the effects of...

We examine stock index futures and Treasury futures around the release time of 30 U.S. macroeconomic announcements. Nine of the 20 announcements that move markets show evidence of substantial informed trading before the official release time. Prices begin to move in the “correct” direction...