Why do security analysts issue overly positive recommendations? We propose a novel approach to distinguish strategic motives (e.g., generating small-investor purchases and pleasing management) from nonstrategic motives (genuine overoptimism). We argue that nonstrategic distorters tend to issue...

Certifiers contribute to the sound functioning of markets by reducing asymmetric information. They, however, have been heavily criticized during the 2008-09 financial crisis. This paper investigates on which side of the market a monopolistic profit-maximizing certifier offers his service. If the...

During a financial crisis, when investors are most in need of liquidity and accurate prices, hedge funds cut their arbitrage positions and hoard cash. The paper explains this phenomenon. We argue that the fragile nature of the capital structure of hedge funds, combined with low market liquidity,...

Focusing on homogeneous beliefs, we can distinguish two commonly shared ideas that, i) the competition between informed traders destroys their trading profits, ii) trading with a noisy signal brings about a loss in the expected profits. So far, it has been proved in the latter framework, that...

Stock prices react significantly to the tone (negativity of words) managers use on earnings conference calls. This reaction reflects reasonably rational use of information. “Tone surprise” – the residual when negativity in managerial tone is regressed on the firm’s recent economic...

Does intellectual property positively affect the success of the equity crowdfunding campaigns? By using a unique dataset of 191 equity crowdfunding campaigns, gathered from the Italian platforms over the period 2014-2018, we answer this question, focusing on the effect of patents on funding...

Potential Future Exposure (PFE) is a standard risk metric for managing business unit counterparty credit risk but there is debate on how it should be calculated. The debate has been whether to use one of many historical ("physical") measures (one per calibration setup), or one of many...

In this paper, we analyze the conflicts of interest of an informed agent who is responsible for divulging his private information about a company and has a reward function positively dependent on its stock price. We assume that the demand for the stock is subject to shocks that may increase...

The utility of Potential Future Exposure (PFE) for counterparty trading limits is being challenged by new market developments, notably widespread regulatory Initial Margin (using 99% 10-day exposure), and netting of trade and collateral flows. However PFE has pre-existing challenges w.r.t....

We consider the portfolio delegation problem in a world with potentially incomplete contingent claim markets. A principal hires an agent to manage a portfolio. When the agent has limited liability (that is, there is a lower bound on the compensation contract), she may have an incentive to take...