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Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Vol. 50 No. 4 2015

Anticipating the 2007–2008 Financial Crisis: Who Knew What and When Did They Know It?

Biljana Adebambo1; Paul Brockman2; Xuemin (Sterling) Yan3,4

1 University of San Diego · 2 Lehigh University · 3 Missouri College · 4 University of Missouri

Abstract

We examine the ability of three groups of informed market participants to anticipate the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Institutional investors and financial analysts exhibit some awareness of the impending crisis in their preference for nonfinancial stocks over financial stocks. In contrast, corporate insiders of financial firms appear to be completely unaware of the timing and extent of the financial crisis. Net purchases by managers of financial firms exceed those by managers of nonfinancial firms over the entire 2006–2008 period. Our results add considerable weight to the argument that the financial crisis was more a case of flawed judgment than flawed incentives.

DOI
10.1017/s0022109015000381
Volume
50
Issue
4
Pages
647-669
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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