To catalyze my fourth-year Ph.D. students in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to think of new ideas after their comprehensive examinations, I asked each one of them to read the abstracts of finance articles published in the last 5 years in JF, JFE, RFS and JFQA. Here are some...

The following is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract. We assume that the central bank has been given a mandate to stabilize its exchange rate around a target, an objective it has to meet by trading against risk-averse speculators who have private information about future spot...

We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong, China. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local...

Economic theory suggests that sometimes the enforcement of insider trading laws may be more important than the existence of these laws. Is that true? I find that at the end of 2022: (1) Insider trading laws exist in most countries; they are not enforced in many countries; (2) firms in countries...

We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong, China. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local...

We study the extent to which active mutual funds bet on the CEO. We find unusual trading and exit rates in a CEO turnover month, particularly for raided CEOs, consistent with larger bets being placed on talented CEOs. Some funds persistently bet (not bet) on the CEO – the jockey (horse)...