We examine the effect of behavioral biases on the mutual fund choices of a large sample of US discount brokerage investors using new measures of attention to news, tax awareness, and fund-level familiarity bias, in addition to behavioral and demographic characteristics of earlier studies. Behaviorally biased investors typically make poor decisions about fund style and expenses, trading frequency, and timing, resulting in poor performance. Furthermore, trend chasing appears related to behavioral biases, rather than to rationally inferring managerial skill from past performance. Factor analysis suggests that biased investors often conform to stereotypes that can be characterized as Gambler, Smart, Overconfident, Narrow Framer, and Mature.

We develop a 10-K-based multidimensional measure of firm locations. Using this measure, we show that firm-level information is geographically distributed and institutional investors are able to exploit the resulting information asymmetry. Specifically, institutional investors overweigh firms whose 10-K frequently mentions the investors' state even when those firms are not headquartered locally and earn superior returns on those stocks. These ownership and performance patterns are stronger among hard-to-value firms. Local investor performance increases with the degree of local bias and with the local economic exposure of portfolio firms. Overall, geographical variation in firm-level information generates economically significant location-based information asymmetry.

We examine whether the decision to participate in the stock market and other related portfolio decisions are influenced by income hedging motives. Economic theory predicts that the market participation propensity should increase as the correlation between income growth and stock market returns decreases. Surprisingly, empirical studies find limited support for the income hedging motive. Using a rich, unique Dutch data set and the National Longitudinal Survey of the Youth (NLSY) from the United States, we show that when the income-return correlation is low, individuals exhibit a greater propensity to participate in the market and allocate a larger proportion of their wealth to risky assets. Even when the income risk is high, individuals exhibit a higher propensity to participate in the market when the hedging potential is high. These findings suggest that income hedging is an important determinant of stock market participation and asset allocation decisions.

We study the aggregate impact of information spillovers emerging from industry star firms. Changes in stars’ relative earnings growth predict future earnings growth, consensus earnings surprises, and job postings of same-industry nonstar firms. Star-firm performance also predicts industry-level GDP and employment growth. Price markup and innovation spillovers are potential channels underlying these patterns. Our results further show that this performance predictability is not fully incorporated into nonstars’ stock prices. A long–short portfolio based on star firms’ earnings growth earns an annualized 6-factor alpha of 8.7%. Together, our findings provide consistent evidence of the economic importance of star firms.

This study shows that correlated trading by gambling-motivated investors generates excess return comovement among stocks with lottery features. Lottery-like stocks comove strongly with one another, and this return comovement is strongest among lottery stocks located in regions where investors exhibit stronger gambling propensity. Looking directly at investor trades, we find that investors with a greater propensity to gamble trade lottery-like stocks more actively and that those trades are more strongly correlated. Finally, we demonstrate that time variation in general gambling enthusiasm and income shocks from fluctuating economic conditions induce a systematic component in investors’ demand for lottery-like stocks.

This study investigates whether geographic variation in religion-induced gambling norms affects aggregate market outcomes. We conjecture that gambling propensity would be stronger in regions with higher concentrations of Catholics relative to Protestants. Consistent with our conjecture, we show that in regions with higher Catholic–Protestant ratios, investors exhibit a stronger propensity to hold lottery-type stocks, broad-based employee stock option plans are more popular, the initial day return following an initial public offering is higher, and the magnitude of the negative lottery-stock premium is larger. Collectively, these results indicate that religion-induced gambling attitudes impact investors' portfolio choices, corporate decisions, and stock returns.

Alfred Cowles' test of the Dow Theory apparently provides strong evidence against the ability of Wall Street's most famous chartist to forecast the stock market. Cowles (1934) analyzes editorials published by the chief exponent of the Dow Theory, William Peter Hamilton. We review Cowles' evidence and find that it supports the contrary conclusion. Hamilton's timing strategies actually yield high Sharpe ratios and positive alphas for the period 1902 to 1929. Neural net modeling to replicate Hamilton's market calls provides interesting insight into the Dow Theory and allows us to examine the properties of the theory itself out of sample.

This study examines whether mood affects the aggregate state-level macroeconomy through its impact on firm-level decisions. Using sky cloud cover as a proxy for mood, we show that mood affects the economic expectations of small business managers. After relatively sunnier periods, managers have more optimistic expectations, and the component of their expectations related to mood influences hiring and investment decisions. Consequently, mood affects state-level job creation and new business starts, especially during periods of greater economic uncertainty. These results suggest that mood-induced economic expectations influence firm-level managerial decisions and state-level macroeconomic fluctuations.

Using hand-collected data on the cultural origins of S&P 500 CEOs and their spouses, we examine whether differences in risk attitudes within marriages influence corporate risk-taking behavior. We find that CEOs with more risk averse spouses adopt relatively safer corporate policies. The effect is stronger if the CEO comes from a more collectivist culture , has been married more recently, or shares more responsibilities with their spouse. Together, these findings suggest that the cultural composition of CEOs’ households and their spouses’ risk preference affect corporate risk-taking behavior.

Although macroeconomic news has a major impact on corporate earnings, anecdotal evidence suggests that financial analyst research is inefficient with respect to such news. Examining analysts' earnings research, we find that they underreact to negative macroeconomic news. Analysts are not all equal, though, as analysts employed at the same firm as an active macroeconomist underreact much less. We find that the benefit of analyst access to an economist is concentrated in firms that are high in cyclicality relative to their industry, high in cyclicality in general, and that are smaller in size. In addition, analysts who are exposed to more accurate or award-winning in-house macroeconomists benefit more. Investors appear to recognize the advantage of access to macroeconomists, reacting more strongly to these analysts' forecast revisions. Overall, our results suggest that the presence of an active in-house macroeconomist improves the efficiency and credibility of analyst research.