Asset owners (principals) typically do not manage their own investments and leave this job to delegated managers (agents). What is best for the asset owner, however, is usually not best for the fund manager. Additional agency conflicts arise when the asset owner does not know the quality and...

In empirical tests guided by recent theory (e.g., Hughes, Liu and Liu 2007; and Lambert, Leuz and Verrecchia 2011), we examine the joint effects of information precision, information asymmetry and the level of market competition on firms' cost of equity capital. Consistent with theory, we find that...

In this paper I study the information acquisition process in a simple asset pricing model with heterogeneous beliefs about future prices. This is instrumental to investigate the effects of financial literacy on market volatility. I posit that financial literacy affects the cost of acquiring...

We develop an equilibrium model for residential housing transactions in an economy with houses that differ in their quality and households that differ in their planned holding horizon. We show that, in equilibrium, clientele effect persists, with long-horizon buyers overwhelmingly choosing...

Popular wisdom regarding athletics is that offenses are at a relative disadvantage in the early portion of seasons. We present evidence that this anecdotal belief holds true over the 2000-2010 National Football League (NFL) seasons. This is reflected in lower offensive yardage, fewer first...

In this paper we test the efficiency of NFL betting markets by examining the ability of NFL point spread and moneyline markets to incorporate information. While bookmakers may properly evaluate available information when setting point spreads and moneylines, we show that the nature of point...

Sudden big price changes are followed by periods of high and persistent volatility. I develop a tractable dynamic rational expectations model consistent with this observation. An infinity of agents possess dispersed information about future dividends and trade in centralized markets. Information...

In dealership markets, asymmetric information feeds through to higher transaction costs as dealers adjust their bid-ask spreads to compensate for anticipated losses. In this paper, we show that the presence of asymmetric information can also provide a positive externality to those market...

We explore the ability of a macro-prudential policy instrument to dampen the consequences of equity mispricing (a bubble) and the correction thereof (the bubble bursting), as well as the consequences for real activity in a production economy. In our model, producers are financed by both bank...

Market participants often invest in order to acquire information that pertains to the market itself (e.g. order flow) rather than to fundamentals. This enables them to infer more information from past trades. I show that agents trading on such information, typically high-frequency traders,...