This paper investigates a sequential social learning problem in which individuals face ambiguity about others’ signal structures and have max-min expected utility preferences, thereby exhibiting ambiguity aversion. Unlike previous findings, which suggest that learning outcomes depend on the specifics of the learning environment, this study establishes information cascades as a robust outcome under ambiguity. With sufficient ambiguity, cascades arise almost surely, regardless of the statistical properties of signal structures. Moreover, standard results predicting the absence of cascades can easily break down: Even minimal ambiguity can trigger cascades when signals are bounded and lead to incorrect herding when signals are unbounded. (JEL D81, D82, D83)

We characterize the relationship between the rent-to-price ratio, expected returns, and expected rent growth in a dynamic housing valuation model, where the middle-aged-to-young (MY) ratio determines the slowly evolving mean of the rent-to-price ratio. The link between demographic trends and the housing market dynamics is established by analyzing how individuals’ housing demand varies across age cohorts using household-level survey data. Empirical results show that deviations of the rent-to-price ratio from its slowly evolving mean, which is determined by the MY ratio, exhibit pronounced predictive power for returns but weak predictive power for rent growth. Further analysis reveals heterogeneous evidence across sample cities.

In a theoretical context where innovators borrow loans or settle for state-owned enterprise (SOE) sponsorship for their projects, we examine the effects of banking prudential regulations and their interaction with corporate leverage on the patenting partnership choice in China using a unique matched patent-firm-bank loan dataset for 15,623 observations in the 2013–17 period. We use a unique instrumental variable (IV) strategy to identify idiosyncratic bank prudential reform shocks associated with the post-2012 Basel III regulation and find prudential metrics (corporate leverage) of the financiers (firms) to positively (negatively) influence SOE patenting partnership choice, though prudential regulation mitigates the latter. Prudential reforms therefore come at a cost of further SOE dominance. However, conditional on an innovation project being SOE sponsored, we find positive spillover effect from the SOE’s employment mandate to loan productivity. Our results are robust across different IV strategies, alternative measures, sub-sample and mechanism analyses.