Existing research shows that members of Congress made informed trades prior to the passage of the STOCK Act of 2012. There is also evidence in the literature to suggest that the STOCK Act was able to deter politicians from trading based on non-public information. However, the question of whether...

Using two proxies for investors’ political affiliation, we document sharp differences in stock returns between firms likely dominated by Democratic investors (blue stocks) and those dominated by Republican investors (red stocks) during the COVID pandemic. Red stocks have 20 basis points higher...

We show that the stock market pricing the presidential margin of victory in a nonlinear concave fashion, with a higher price for medium than slight or crushing victories. We conjecture that the margin of victory reflects president confidence and the ability to execute policies. A small margin...

Watching late-night TV shows has become prevalent and causes significant sleep loss. We examine how it affects financial markets. We find that market returns significantly decline on days following the release of popular late-night TV shows. The effect is stronger when stocks have larger market...

Breakdowns in market quality are extreme price movements that reverse once the market learns that nothing fundamental has occurred. The average daily breakdown frequency from 1993-2013 is 1.03%, with averages in 2010-2013 more than two-thirds lower at 0.34%. Breakups, extreme price increases,...

There has been extensive literature on effects of short-sale constraints. A most widely study is Miller (1997) who argues that given the short-sale constraints, investors with bearish information cannot trade in the market unless they already hold the stocks. As a consequence, stock prices...

This paper empirically models China’s stock prices using conventional fundamentals: corporate earnings, risk-free interest rate, and a proxy for equity risk premium. It uses the estimated longrun stock price misalignments to date booms and busts, and analyses equity market reforms and excess...