We survey a representative sample of U.S. individuals about how well leading academic theories describe their financial beliefs and decisions. We find substantial support for many factors hypothesized to affect portfolio equity share, particularly background risk, investment horizon, rare...

This Article provides the first detailed empirical analysis of the landscape of U.S. stock market indices. First, I hand collect detailed information about the universe of indices used as benchmarks for U.S. mutual funds. I document substantial heterogeneity across indices and find that the...

Security indices are central to modern finance. Because corporate bonds trade infrequently – often less than once a month – corporate bond indices cannot rely exclusively on real time prices, and must instead estimate the value of the market portfolio. While commercial indices do this using...

We survey a representative sample of U.S. individuals about how well leading academic theories describe their financial beliefs and decisions. We find substantial support for many factors hypothesized to affect portfolio equity share, particularly background risk, investment horizon, rare...

In 2017, Congress repealed the FCC's latest attempt to protect consumer privacy on the internet and allowed ISPs to continue to track their users' online behavior. We evaluate the impact of this decision on consumer privacy in light of biased beliefs and information overload. We do so through a...

Nothing in either corporate or securities law requires companies to notify investors what they will be voting on before the record date for the meeting. We show that, overwhelmingly, they do not. The result is “hidden agendas:” in 88% of shareholder votes, investors cannot find out what they...

We study gender differences in the value of credentials in managerial labor markets. Exploiting quasi-random variation in S&P 500 index membership, we examine the careers of managers whose firms were “just included” on the index and compare them to the careers of managers of similar firms...

The Fama-French factors are ubiquitous in empirical finance, industry, and law. We find that factor returns differ substantially depending on when the data were downloaded. The effects of these retroactive changes are large. Holding the sample period constant and varying only factor vintages, we...

A robust literature describes the incentives and stewardship practices of the “Big Three” asset managers (BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global Advisors), often referring to these asset managers as “passive.” This is so common that the “Big Three,” “index fund,” and...

As investor money flows into environmental, social and governance (ESG) mutual funds, regulators have raised growing concerns about greenwashing – specifically that a fund’s name will falsely suggest that the fund invests in companies that meet certain ESG standards. To address these...