We investigate empirically the determinants of the quality of governments in a large cross-section of countries. We assess government performance using measures of government intervention, public sector efficiency, public good provision, size of government, and political freedom. We find that...

This paper takes a first look at investment strategies of managers of 769 pension funds, with total assets of $129 billion at the end of 1989. The data show that managers of these funds tend to oversell stocks that have performed poorly. Relative sales of losers accelerate in the fourth quarter,...

Analysts of the recent financial crisis often refer to the role of asset "fire sales" in depleting the balance sheets of financial institutions and aggravating the fragility of the financial system. The term "fire sale" has been around since the nineteenth century to describe firms selling...