We analyze the link between pessimism and risk-aversion. We consider a model of partially revealing, competitive rational expectations equilibrium with diverse information, in which the distribution of risk-aversion across individuals is unknown. We show that when a high individual level of...

We develop a dynamic model in which traders have differential information about the payoff of the risky asset and trade the risky asset with proportional transaction costs. Firstly, trading volume provides useful information on the asset fundamental value which cannot be inferred from the...

The paper revisits and qualifies existing insights on security design. A rich literature argues that tranching creates debt-like instruments that are robust to adverse selection or discourage wasteful information acquisition. Yet, for a given information structure, while tranching confines and...

How does the speed by which information diffuses affect its value to a stock market investor? In a structural model solved in closed-form, this speed has two opposing effects on the empirically dominant term of the value of information. Faster-diffusing information means quicker and less noisy...

We model strategic trading by a rent-seeking insider, who exchanges without being spotted, and propose a comprehensive theory of market non-anonymity. Several novel results are established. They depend on asset value proprieties, beliefs, inter-temporal choices, and investors' characteristics....

Stock return autocorrelation contains spurious components—the nonsynchronous trading effect (NT) and bid–ask bounce (BAB)—and genuine components—partial price adjustment (PPA) and time-varying risk premia (TVRP). We identify a portion that can unambiguously be attributed to PPA, using...

This paper analyzes the implications of pre-trade transparency on market performance. In competitive markets, transparency increases market liquidity and reduces price volatility, whereas these results may not hold under imperfect competition. More importantly, market depth and volatility might...

We consider a noisy rational expectations equilibrium in a multi-asset economy populated by informed and uninformed investors, and noise traders. Informed investors privately observe an aggregate risk factor affecting the probabilities of different states of the economy. Uninformed investors...

The stylized fact that public announcements in financial markets are followed by intense trading, high trading volume and volatile prices, is widely perceived as the sign of increasing disagreement due to the announcement. However, it is common to argue that this would be inconsistent with...