We document several gender differences in reward-based crowdfunding by analyzing a large sample of Kickstarter campaigns. We argue that these differences are most plausibly explained by male entrepreneurs’ relative over-optimism. Suggesting a tendency to overestimate the demand for their products, we find that male entrepreneurs set higher goal amounts, resulting in more frequent campaign failures. In successive campaigns, male entrepreneurs’ goal amounts and success rates converge toward those of female entrepreneurs, consistent with entrepreneurial experience mitigating the behavioral bias. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurs learn from experience, and that female first-time entrepreneurs may have more realistic expectations of the demand for their products, increasing their success rates in crowdfunding. Moreover, although serial entrepreneurs exhibit better performance already in their first campaigns, they still improve over successive campaigns, further highlighting the importance of entrepreneurial learning.

Abstract Stock returns during the week are negatively associated with the reported incidence of domestic violence during the weekend. This relationship is primarily driven by negative returns. The incidence of domestic violence increases with the magnitude of losses, and the effect increases with local stock market participation. Our findings suggest that negative wealth shocks caused by stock market crashes can affect stress levels within intimate relationships, escalate arguments, and trigger domestic violence. Stock market losses may reduce household utility beyond the shock to financial wealth, supporting gain-loss models where disutility from losses outweighs the utility from gains of a similar magnitude. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

We study the role of regional cultural differences in M&A transactions in the U.S. A larger social trust distance between two companies reduces the likelihood of them combining via an M&A transaction and results in lower completion rates and longer completion times, indicating higher complexity in deal execution. However, a larger social trust distance is also associated with higher gains from mergers, as measured by acquirer and combined announcement returns and medium-term buy-and-hold abnormal returns. This suggests that for these announced deals, the synergy potential is high enough to offset the costs induced by the large cultural distance.

We propose that firms use stock splits as a means of attracting attention and inducing information production to correct price distortion caused by investors’ 52-week high anchoring bias. Our analysis shows that firms are more likely to split stocks when their prices are near 52-week highs, especially if they are highly profitable and undervalued. After splits, undervaluation gradually disappears. Moreover, these splits are associated with a slower market reaction and a more positive post-split drift, consistent with the notion that investors’ anchoring bias hinders price adjustment, leading to a gradual price correction. In addition, the likelihood of such splits increases with CEO wealth-performance sensitivity, and investment-price sensitivity increases following splits. Our evidence suggests that firms utilize stock splits to correct mispricing induced by investors’ 52-week high anchoring bias.