Prior research has found that investors have strong preferences for stocks with positive skewness. These preferences have been shown to lead to price premiums and subsequent underperformance. This study extends this growing body of literature by testing whether the underperformance of stocks...

In this study, we examine the relationship between return skewness, short interest, and the efficiency of stock prices. Given that preferences for skewness have been shown to impact asset prices, we examine how skewness relates to market efficiency. We find that stocks with positive skewness...

Using a unique empirical approach that accounts for the possibility that financial market crashes are endogenously determined by market structures, this study examines how economic freedom contribute to crashes in financial markets. On one hand, economic freedom might provide an unregulated...

Despite assumptions of mean-variance efficiency that underlie most asset pricing models, investors have shown a penchant for positive skewness. This study documents that the ratio of call option volume relative to total option volume is greatest for stocks with return distributions that resemble...

In this study, we examine the distribution of market liquidity for a broad sample of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). While prior research has focused on the average liquidity of REITs, we extend our analysis to include both the variability and skewness of liquidity, both of which have...

A broad stream of research shows that information flows into underlying stock prices through the options market. For instance, prior research shows that both the Put-Call Ratio (P/C) and the Option-to-Stock Volume Ratio (O/S) predict negative future stock returns. In this paper, we compare the...

The role of speculative trading in markets is often debated. The recent extremes in the real estate economic cycle has created an ideal setting to investigate the role of speculative trading in the marketplace. Specifically, we focus on speculative trading in REITs during the recent boom and...

This paper provides evidence that supports the original hypothesis of Chordia, Subrahmanyam, and Ashuman (2001) that greater variability in liquidity should lead to higher expected returns. While prior research has often found a negative relation between the volatility of liquidity and expected...

Prior research argues that religiosity increases the ethical behavior and levels of risk aversion of firm managers. To the extent that this is true, more religious countries might exhibit more stability in stock prices. This study tests this assertion by determining whether religiosity in...

This paper examines how exchange-rate volatility affects the volatility of stock prices. To account for the possibility that exchange-rate volatility and stock price volatility are endogenously determined by the structure of the market on which the stock is traded, we examine the volatility of...