We use the 2007 credit crisis to assess the effect of financial contracting on real corporate behavior. We identify heterogeneity in financial contracting at the onset of the crisis by exploring ex-ante variation in long-term debt maturity. Our empirical methodology uses an experiment-like...

We exploit demographic variation to identify the effect of dividend demand on corporate payout policy. Retail investors tend to hold local stocks and older investors prefer dividend-paying stocks. Together, these tendencies generate geographically-varying demand for dividends. Firms...

We use the 2007 credit crisis to assess the effect of financial contracting on real corporate behavior. We identify heterogeneity in financial contracting at the onset of the crisis by exploring ex-ante variation in long-term debt maturity. Our empirical methodology uses an experiment-like...

This paper shows that individual investors are reluctant to sell mutual funds that have appreciated in value and are willing to sell losers, in stark contrast to their stock trading where the disposition effect dominates. Comparison of trades in taxable and tax-deferred accounts suggests that a...

This paper tests whether information advantages help explain why some individual investors concentrate their stock portfolios in a few stocks. Stock investments made by households that choose to concentrate their brokerage accounts in a few stocks outperform those made by households with more...

We study the relation between households' stock purchases and stock purchases made by their neighbors. A ten percentage point increase in neighbors' purchases of stocks from an industry is associated with a two percentage point increase in households' own purchases of stocks from that industry....

Using data on the investments a large number of individual investors made through a discount broker from 1991 to 1996, we find that the stock trades by households with concentrated portfolios outperform those with diversified portfolios. While in general the stocks bought by individual investors...

Using data on stock purchases individual investors made through a discount broker from 1991 to 1996, we study information diffusion effects the relation between household investment choices and those made by their neighbors. A ten percentage point increase in neighbors' purchases of stocks from...