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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 37 No. 2 2024

Dynamic Equilibrium with Costly Short-Selling and Lending Market

Adem Atmaz1; Suleyman Basak2; Fangcheng Ruan1

1 Purdue University, USA · 2 London Business School and CEPR , UK

open access

Abstract

We develop a dynamic model of costly stock short-selling and lending market and obtain implications that simultaneously support many empirical regularities related to short-selling. In our model, investors’ belief disagreement leads to shorting demand, whereby short-sellers pay shorting fees to borrow stocks from lenders. Our main novel results are as follows. Short interest is positively related to shorting fee and predicts stock returns negatively. Higher short-selling risk can be associated with lower stock returns and less short-selling activity. Stock volatility is increased under costly short-selling. An application to GameStop episode yields implications consistent with observed patterns.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhad060
Volume
37
Issue
2
Pages
444-506
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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