In the presence of idiosyncratic risk, the public revelation of information about uncertain aggregate outcomes such as policy choices can be detrimental to social welfare. By announcing informative signals on non-insurable aggregate risk, the policy maker distorts agents' insurance incentives...

We develop and apply a procedure to test the welfare implications of a beauty and non-beauty contest based on survey forecasts of interest rates and yields in a large country sample over an extended period of time. In most countries, interest rate forecasts are unbiased and consistent with both...

We investigate the informational role of trading volume and quote changes in VIX options with regard to future movements in the index, based upon a high-frequency framework. Our results reveal that whilst volume imbalances convey no significant predictive information, quote changes in VIX...