Publications

03 Nov 2003
What Do You Think?

Can Investors Have Too Much Accounting Transparency?

Summing Up Basic conclusions that can be drawn from responses to this month's column are that it may or may not be useful to try to legislate accounting transparency. But such efforts address symptoms, not causes, of behaviors leading to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Web

Human Behavior & Decision-Making - Faculty & Research

Human Behavior & Decision-Making Human Behavior & Decision-Making 2014 Book The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See By: Max Bazerman This book will examine the common failure to notice critical... View Details

May 2007
Article

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Investment; Policy; Corporate Finance

2005
Other Unpublished Work

Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

By: Malcolm Baker, Joshua Coval and Jeremy Stein

We explore the consequences for corporate financial policy that arise when investors exhibit inertial behavior. One implication of investor inertia is that, all else equal, a firm pursuing a strategy of equity-financed growth will prefer a stock-for-stock merger to... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Behavior; Stocks; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Investment; Financial Institutions; Equity; Corporate Finance

June 2005
Article

Currency Returns, Intrinsic Value, and Institutional Investor Flows

By: K. A. Froot and T. Ramadorai

Keywords: Currencies; Exchange Rates; Purchasing Power Parity; Real Exchange Rate; Forecasting and Prediction; Behavioral Finance; Investment Return; Market Transactions; Performance Expectations; Personal Characteristics; Asset Pricing; Financial Services Industry

Abstract
Using a large panel of U.S. brokerage accounts trades and positions, we show that a large fraction of retail investors trade as contrarians after large earnings surprises, especially for loser stocks, and that such contrarian trading... View Details

Web

In The Classroom - Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability

In The Classroom In The Classroom Over the past several years, BFFS project members have been actively teaching courses on topics related to financial stability and behavioral finance. There are courses tailored for Harvard... View Details

11 Sep 2020
News

Even the Threat of a Tougher Rule on Financial Advice Has Helped Investors

Web

Measuring Sentiment & Expectations - Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability

updates and corrections of the data by Mergent. Current version update: Sept 2020. Equity Market Sentiment "Sent" Baker and Wurgler developed an index of equity market sentiment that captures the common variation in a number of different time series that proxy for... View Details

2024
Working Paper

What Drives Variation in Investor Portfolios? Estimating the Roles of Beliefs and Risk Preferences

By: Mark Egan, Alexander MacKay and Hanbin Yang

We present an empirical model of portfolio choice that allows for the nonparametric estimation of investors' (subjective) expectations and risk preferences. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of 401(k) plans from 2009 through 2019, we explore heterogeneity in asset... View Details

Keywords: Stock Market Expectations; Demand Estimation; Retirement Planning; Defined Contribution Retirement Plan; 401 (K); Finance; Investment Portfolio; Investment; Retirement; Behavioral Finance; Financial Services Industry; United States

SSRN

Article

How Institutional Investors Frame Their Losses: Evidence on Dynamic Loss Aversion from Currency Portfolios

By: Kenneth A. Froot, John Arabadjis, Sonya Cates and Stephen Lawrence

Currency investors exhibit a tendency to cut risk by pairing both longs and shorts following losses and a weaker tendency to add risk following gains. By differentiating between position level, portfolio level, and aggregate cross-portfolio losses in currency... View Details

Keywords: Loss Aversion; Decision Choices and Conditions; Currency; Investment; Risk Management; Behavioral Finance

18 Feb 2011
Working Paper Summaries

A Behavioral Model of Demandable Deposits and Its Implications for Financial Regulation

Keywords: by Julio J. Rotemberg; Financial Services

December 2012 (Revised January 2015)
Technical Note

Early Career LBOs Using the Search Fund Model

By: Howard Stevenson, Michael Roberts and Jim Sharpe

The funded search model is one alternative for individuals who, at some point in their career, want to run their own companies. This note looks at the funded search, as a means to entrepreneurship through acquisition and describes the path to buy and run a business... View Details

Keywords: Search Funds; Search; Entrepreneurial Finance; Investor Behavior; Career Planning; Entrepreneurial Management; Fundraising; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Capital Structure; Borrowing and Debt; Personal Development and Career; Private Ownership; Acquisition; Finance; Leveraged Buyouts

Educators

Spring 2021
Article

Corporate Resilience and Response During COVID-19

By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim and Hui (Stacie) Wang

The coronavirus pandemic caused a sharp market decline while raising heterogeneous responses across companies related to their employees, supply chain, and repurposing of operations to provide needed products and services. We study whether during the 2020 COVID-19... View Details

SSRN

July 2019
Article

Market Reaction to Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosure

By: Jody Grewal, Edward J. Riedl and George Serafeim

We examine the equity market reaction to events associated with the passage of a directive in the European Union (EU) mandating increased nonfinancial disclosure. These disclosures relate to firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and would be... View Details

Keywords: Nonfinancial Information; Nonfinancial Performance; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investor Behavior; Disclosure; Disclosure Regulation; Regulation; Sustainability; Corporate Performance; Information; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Outcome or Result

SSRN

May 2021
Article

The Firm Next Door: Using Satellite Images to Study Local Information Advantage

By: Jung Koo Kang, Lorien Stice-Lawrence and Forester Wong

We use novel satellite data that track the number of cars in the parking lots of 92,668 stores for 71 publicly listed U.S. retailers to study the local information advantage of institutional investors. We establish car counts as a timely measure of store-level... View Details

Keywords: Satellite Images; Store-level Performance; Institutional Investors; Local Advantage; Overweighting; Processing Costs; Alternative Data; Big Data; Emerging Technologies; Information; Quality; Institutional Investing; Decision Making; Behavioral Finance; Analytics and Data Science

January 2025
Case

AI Meets VC: The Data-Driven Revolution at Quantum Light Capital

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Ilya Kondrashov, CEO of Quantum Light Capital, was driven to harness AI for identifying high-potential scale-ups. Collaborating with Nik Storonsky, founder of Revolut, the duo observed that most venture capital (VC) decisions were heavily influenced by emotion, with... View Details

Educators

November 2014 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Micromax: Scaling the Largest Indian Mobile Handset Company

By: Ranjay Gulati, Rachna Tahilyani and Alicia DeSantola

It is January 2014 and Rahul Sharma, cofounder of Micromax Informatics (Micromax), the largest Indian mobile handset company, is preparing for an emergency conference call with his private equity investors. In the last six years, Micromax had grown its annual product... View Details

Keywords: Mobile; Scaling; Indian Software Development; Consumer Behavior; Management Turnover; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Management; E-commerce; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; India

Educators

Article

Capital Market-Driven Corporate Finance

By: Malcolm Baker

Much of empirical corporate finance focuses on sources of the demand for various forms of capital, not the supply. Recently, this has changed. Supply effects of equity and credit markets can arise from a combination of three ingredients: investor tastes, limited... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Finance; Limits To Arbitrage; Market Efficiency; Securities Issuance; Supply Effects; Corporate Finance; Investment; Price; Capital Markets; Equity; Financial Services Industry