We argue that self-deception underlies various aspects of the behavior of investors and of prices in capital markets. We examine the implications of self-deception for investor overconfidence, and how firms and financial institutions can exploit the overconfidence of investors in a predatory...

We review theory and evidence relating to herd behavior, payoff and reputational interactions, social learning and informational cascades in capital markets. We offer a simple taxonomy of effects and evaluate how alternative theories may help explain evidence on the behavior of investors, firms...

This paper uses pre-offer market valuations to evaluate the misvaluation and Q theories of takeovers. Bidder and target valuations (price-to-book, or price-to-residual-income-model-value) are related to means of payment, mode of acquisition, premia, target hostility, offer success, and bidder...

Prevailing models of capital markets capture a limited form of social influence and information transmission, in which the beliefs and behavior of an investor affect others only through market price, information transmission and processing is simple (without thoughts and feelings), and there is...

This study tests whether naiquest;ve trading by individual investors, or some class of individual investors, causes post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD). Inconsistent with the individual trading hypothesis, individual investor trading fails to subsume any of the power of extreme earnings...

We derive a separation theorem: investors hold a common risk-adjusted market portfolio regardless of their information sets, and a portfolio based upon their private signals. This implies that investors have non-negligible holdings of assets they know little about, so nonparticipation remains a...

Using a sample of private loans issued to U.S. firms between 1994 and 2006, we examine whether lenders take into account the relationship of the borrower-supplier with its major customers when determining loan yields, dividend restriction covenant and the overall number of financial covenants at...

Firms often register trademarks as they launch new products or services. We find that the number of new trademark registrations positively predicts firm profitability, stock returns, and underreaction by analysts in their earnings forecasts. Using the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (FTDA) as an...

We test how market overvaluation affects corporate innovation. Estimated stock overvaluation is very strongly associated with measures of innovative inventiveness (novelty, originality, and scope), as well as R&D and innovative output (patent and citation counts). Misvaluation affects R&D more...