Institutions often have access to corporate inside information through their connections, but relatively little is known about the extent to which they exploit their informational advantage through short-term trading. We employ broker-level trading data to systematically examine possible cases...

We study the effects of local religious beliefs on mutual fund risk-taking behaviors. Funds located in <i>low</i>-Protestant or <i>high</i>-Catholic areas exhibit significantly higher fund return volatilities. Similar differences persist when we use the religiosity ratios at fund managers' college locations....

This paper examines the relationship between default probability and stock returns. Using the Expected Default Frequency (EDF) of Moody's KMV, we document that higher default probabilities are not associated with higher expected stock returns. Within a model of bargaining between equity holders...