We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong, China. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local...

We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong, China. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local...

Stock returns around acquisition announcements are widely viewed as being reflective of the net present value created by these transactions. As such, announcement returns should correlate with acquisition outcomes. Using a new measure of realized transaction-level acquisition failure, as well as...

Stock returns around acquisition announcements are widely viewed as being reflective of the net present value created by these transactions. As such, announcement returns should correlate with acquisition outcomes. Using a new measure of realized transaction-level acquisition failure, as well as...

Trained undercover men and women posed as potential clients and visited all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong that cater to retail investors. Each auditor was assigned to an “avatar” consisting of a specific combination of attributes. We find that women are more likely than men...

Exploiting the unique institutional setting of Hong Kong's real estate market, we uncover a curious ripple effect of haunted houses on the prices of nearby houses. Prices drop on average 20% for units that become haunted, 10% for units on the same floor, 7% for units in the same block, and 1%...

Using institutional equity trading data, we find that a set of small institutional investors consistently follow credit ratings issued by an investor-paid rating agency in their trading decisions. Although rating information is credit related, we find that these followers often respond more...

Weld, Michaely, Thaler, and Benartzi (2009) find that the average nominal U.S. stock price has been approximately $25 since the Great Depression. They report that this “nominal price fixation is primarily a U.S. or North American phenomenon.” Using a larger data set from 38 countries, we...