The behavior of equity prices is analyzed in a general equilibrium model where agents have preferences not only over consumption but also (implicitly) over their beliefs. To alleviate cognitive dissonance, investors endogenously choose to ignore information that conflicts too much with their ex...

This paper models the idiosyncratic or asset-specific return of an asset as the return on a portfolio that is long in that asset and short in other assets in the same class, thereby removing the common components of returns. This is the type of “hedged” position that is held by...

This paper analyses the links between the investment strategies of a commodity-based SWF and the macroeconomic framework of the owner country. We examine some basic macrofinancial linkages of an SWF's strategic asset allocation (SAA) strategies with regard to the government budget, monetary...

How to prevent runs on open-end mutual funds? In recent years, markets have observed an innovation that changed the way open-end funds are priced. Alternative pricing rules (known as swing pricing) adjust funds' net asset values to pass on funds' trading costs to transacting shareholders. Using...

We differentiate the effects of passive institutional investors, which mainly refer to index funds that adopt a passive portfolio strategy, on firms' innovation activities and innovation strategies. Relying on plausibly exogenous variation in passive institutional ownership generated by Russell...

Policymakers often express concern that herding by financial market participants destabilizes markets and increases the fragility of the financial system. This paper provides an overview of the recent theoretical and empirical research on herd behavior in financial markets. It addresses the...

We assess the impact of media sentiment on international equity prices using more than 4.5 million Reuters articles published across the globe between 1991 and 2015. News sentiment robustly predicts daily returns in both advanced and emerging markets, even after controlling for known...

Country practices towards managing financial risks on a sovereign balance sheet continue to evolve. Each crisis period, and its legacy on sovereign balance sheets, reaffirms the need for strengthening financial risk management. This paper discusses some salient features embedded in in the...

An approach for minimizing risk through diversification of foreign exchange reserves and sovereign borrowings is proposed for central banks of small open economies. This approach--developed in a simple 2-period, 3-country framework--differs from past work in that the elements of exchange and...