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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 36 No. 2 2023

Financial Market Ethics

David Easley1; Maureen O’Hara2

1 Cornell University , USA · 2 Johnson College of Business, Cornell University , USA

Abstract

We develop a model of psychological-games-played-on-a-network to demonstrate a role for endogenously determined, rationally chosen ethics. Our analysis produces sharp results about contagion of nonethical or ethical behavior and the possible equilibrium configurations of each type of behavior. We find, and quantify, critical densities for clusters of each type of behavior that determine everything about contagion. We introduce society as a third player to investigate ethical failures as externalities. We use these results to show how regulations and network structure can affect whether clusters of ethical behavior can survive and how large they can be in a financial market setting.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhac015
Volume
36
Issue
2
Pages
534-570
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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