We study the link between social interaction and stock market bubbles. We argue that an increase in social interaction may facilitate the birth of a cascade-type pattern and indirectly of a bubble. We concentrate on a form of interaction that is rooted back in the past: college-based interaction...

We examine how shareholder investment horizons influence firms' payout decisions. We find that U.S. firms held by short-term institutional investors have a higher propensity to buybacks shares instead of using dividends. Firm managers seem to respond to the preferred payout policy of investors...

We address the issue of how heterogeneity of trade among investors affects stock returns. We develop a model of the dispersion of opinion among investors that has implications for asset pricing. We test the relationship between dispersion of investor opinion and stock returns using a two-year...

We study how dealers behave when there exist parallel markets for the same asset that are characterized by very different degrees of transparency. We show that the optimal trading strategy, depending on the features of the less transparent market and on the informational uncertainty in the more...

We study how dealers behave when there exist parallel markets for the same asset that are characterized by very different degrees of transparency. We show that the optimal trading strategy, depending on the features of the less transparent market, may involve price manipulation. Informed dealers...

We address the issue of how the heterogeneity of trade among investors affects stock returns. We model and test the relationship between dispersion of opinion, heterogeneity of trade and stock returns. The empirical investigation makes use of a two-year panel of more than 91 thousand individual...

Trading generates not only information about the payoff of the assets traded, but also information about the traders themselves. Over time this information creates reputation. By using a unique dataset on the Treasury bond market we derive a measure of reputation. This is then used to group...

Why are there so many mutual funds around? What leads the industry to segment itself into an ever-increasing number of categories? What can be said about such a market configuration in terms of welfare? To address these questions we model the process that endogenously leads to market...

We examine the effect of the investor horizon of institutional bondholders (e.g., mutual bond funds and insurance companies) on the leverage of the firm using a novel dataset. Our main finding is that the investment horizon of the firm's bond investor base (measured as functions of (i) the...

We examine the effect of the investor horizon of institutional bondholders (e.g., mutual bond funds and insurance companies) on the leverage of the firm using a novel dataset. Our main finding is that the investment horizon of the firm's bond investor base (measured as functions of (i) the...