<p>I discuss a new intellectual paradigm, social economics and finance: the study of the social processes that shape economic thinking and behavior. This emerging field recognizes that people observe and talk to each other. A key, underexploited building block of social economics and finance is...</p>

<p>This document contains presentation slides for the American Finance Association's Presidential Address of January 4, 2020. The address is based on the paper "Social Transmission Bias in Economics and Finance."</p><p>The paper: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=3550880" https://ssrn.com/abstract=3550880...</p>

<p>I discuss a new intellectual paradigm, social economics and finance: the study of the social processes that shape economic thinking and behavior. This emerging field recognizes that people observe and talk to each other. A key, underexploited building block of social economics and finance is...</p>

This paper studies information blockages and the asymmetric release of information in a security market with fixed setup costs of trading. In this setting, 'sidelined' investors may delay trading until price movements validate their private signals. Trading thereby internally generates the...

This paper models how imperfect memory affects the optimal continuity of policies. We examine the choices of a player (individual or firm) who observes previous actions but cannot remember the rationale for these actions. In a stable environment, the player optimally responds to memory loss with...

I propose here the psychological attraction theory of financial regulation - that regulation is the result of psychological biases on the part of political participants - voters, politicians, bureaucrats, and media commentators; and of regulatory ideologies that exploit these biases. Some key...

What is the point of style? According to Richard Lanham in his book, The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information, style is the means by which attention is attracted and allocated. Lanham's book describes the triumph of 'fluff' over 'stuff' (information over objects)...

Past research has shown that the level of operating accruals is a negative cross-sectional predictor of stock returns. This paper examines whether the accrual anomaly extends to the aggregate stock market. In contrast with cross-sectional findings, there is no indication that aggregate operating...

We analyze capital allocation in a conglomerate where divisional managers with uncertain abilities compete for promotion to CEO. A manager can sometimes gain by unobservably adding variance to divisional output. Capital rationing can limit this distortion, increase productive efficiency, and...

This paper provides a model for valuing stocks that takes into account the stochastic processes for earnings and interest rates. Our analysis differs from past research of this type in being applicable to stocks that have a positive probability of zero or negative earnings. By avoiding the...