Traditional portfolio balance theory derives a downward sloping currency demand function from limited international asset substitutability. Historically, this theory enjoyed little empirical support. We provide direct evidence by examining the exchange rate effect of a major redefinition of the...

By reaching a broad population of investors, mass media can alleviate informational frictions and affect security pricing even if it does not supply genuine news. We investigate this hypothesis by studying the cross-sectional relation between media coverage and expected stock returns. We find...

I show that the production of information in financial markets is limited by the extent of risk sharing. The wider a stock's investor base, the smaller the risk borne by each shareholder and the less valuable information. A firm which expands its investor base without raising capital affects its...

How does competition in firms' product markets influence their behavior in equity markets? Do product market imperfections spread to equity markets? We examine these questions in a noisy rational expectations model in which firms operate under monopolistic competition while their shares trade in...

Do exchange rates react to exogenous capital movements? We explore this issue based on the redefinition of the MSCI international equity indices announced on 10 December 2000 and implemented in two steps on 30 November 2001 and 31 May 2002. The index changes implied major changes in the...

The media are increasingly recognized as key players in financial markets. I investigate their causal impact on trading and price formation by examining national newspaper strikes in several countries. Trading volume falls 12% on strike days. The dispersion of stock returns and their intraday...

I solve (with an approximation) a Grossman-Stiglitz economy under general preferences, thus allowing for wealth effects. Because information generates increasing returns, decreasing absolute risk aversion, in conjunction with the availability of costly information, is sufficient to explain why...

A competitive stock market is embedded into a neoclassical growth economy to analyze the interplay between the acquisition of information about firms, its partial revelation through stock prices, capital allocation and income. The stock market allows investors to share their costly private...

I investigate whether changes in stock market participation costs can explain the long-term increase in the number of U.S. stockholders. I separate these costs into two components: an information cost (the cost of collecting market information), and an entry cost (all other costs, including...