Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Short-Selling Constraints and Supply Effects

Japanese markets have unique institutional attributes, which provide an ideal laboratory for investigating potential supply effects. These regulatory factors permit an examination of issue-day price effects, at the influx of additional shares from equity offerings, free of simultaneous release of new information. Moreover, Japanese regulations permit a clean identification of stocks with and without short-sales constraints. We posit that trading constraints engender a supply effect. Indeed, a supply effect is experienced by short-sale constrained stocks: Consistent with downward sloping demand curves, issue-day returns are significantly negative and, negatively related to the offers’ relative size, only for trading restricted stocks.
Information Search within a Webpage: Boundedly Rational Models of Eye Movements and Clicks

We build a model of information search within a web-page using eye-tracking data collected during two incentive-compatible, online shopping experiments. We assume that shoppers make eye fixation decisions based on the attractiveness of the visual elements on the page and the effort of moving their eyes towards those elements. These elements contain product information and clickable links to new pages. After each fixation, shoppers choose either to continue search or to end search by clicking on a link within a fixated element when its attractiveness crosses a decision threshold. Our model contains dynamics that allow for Bayesian updating of product information, decision threshold trends, and one-stage ahead decision inputs. Using posterior predictive checks, we demonstrate that our model makes accurate in-sample predictions regarding the sequence of fixations and clicks. In Experiment 1, we use counterfactual simulations to predict the effects of hypothetical product layouts. In Experiment 2, we empirically test these counterfactual predictions. We also conduct sensitivity analyses to assess how near to optimally shoppers searched. These results provide guidance for the design of online product displays.
Prudential Policy with Debt Overhang

Modern macroeconomy experienced recurrent financial crises followed by protracted periods of debt overhang and slow recovery. This paper proposes a tractable dynamic framework in which debt accumulated during credit booms is sufficiently large that corporate entities cannot attract voluntary new lending during a crisis. We study the efficiency properties and show that firms’ individually optimal investment decisions during credit booms fail to internalize their collective effect in exacerbating economy-wide debt overhang during recessions. Stabilization policies such as debt bailouts make the economy more crisis-prone, whereas market-based monetary stimulus discourages ex ante risk taking. Numerical illustrations suggest that optimally designed prudential policy substantially mitigates the incidence, severity, and protractedness of financial crises.
Analyst Coverage and Corporate Risk-Taking: Evidence From Property-Casualty Insurance Firms

We test for the causal impact of analyst coverage on corporate risk-taking in the property and casualty insurance sector, using the exogenous change in analyst coverage introduced by broker closures and mergers. We find that a decrease in analyst coverage promotes an increase in insurers’ risk-taking, which is mainly driven by insurers with smaller initial analyst coverage and those operating in an environment of lower product market competition. We also show that the decrease in analyst coverage causes more risky investment behaviors, more risky underwriting, and less conservative reserving practice.
What Drives Intraday Reversal? Illiquidity or Liquidity Oversupply?

Previous studies of the U.S. market regard short-term reversal as compensation for liquidity provision. However, we find that intraday reversal has no significant dependence on stock liquidity for the Chinese market. Hence, based on a stylized framework, we propose an alternative explanation: uninformed retail traders, who underestimate the information component in equilibrium price due to physiologi cal anchor, trade against previous price movement, generating an opposing price pressure. The empirical results confirm this liquidity oversupply explanation. The negative correlation between previous intraday returns and future returns in the Chinese market is reversed once we extend the holding period. This indicates that reversal is a pricing error due to excessive liquidity provision from uninformed retail traders instead of a price correction from a temporary price concession due to lack of liquidity.
The impact of Investor Leverage on Stock Market Spillover Effects:Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Using a sample of Chinese stocks, we demonstrate that liquidity and price movements in stocks with investor leverage can spill out to other stocks within a day causing the intraday lead-lag relations in stock markets. In addition, we provide evidence suggesting that leverage in both long positions (i.e., margin interest) and short positions (i.e., short interest) contribute to the degree of leverage stocks’ leading effects. Finally, we employ mediation models to gauge the mechanisms through which the lead-lag relations may appear. We find that both the deleverage process of the leveraged traders and the cross-asset learning behavior of the investors are important explanations for the relation between leverage in long position and relevant stocks’ leading effects. But the cross-asset mechanism does not explain why leverage in short position causes the leading effects in these stocks.
The More We Know, the Less We Agree: A Test of the Trading Horizon Heterogeneity Theory

We examine the Kondor theoretical explanation of an enduring puzzle: trading volumes and stock return volatility peak after the release of public information. Using a comprehensive data set of institutional holdings and earnings announcements, we find supporting evidence that the proportion of short-term investors is positively associated with post-announcement spikes in trading volume and return volatility. This finding survives in the identification test based on the annual reconstitutions of the Russell 1000 and 2000 indices. We show our results largely withstand several alternative explanations related to the constitution of institutional investors, informed trading, and heterogeneous beliefs.
Employee Quality, Internal Information and Corporate Investment Efficiency: Firm Level Evidence

This study investigates the association between the quality of the entire workforces and corporate investment efficiency. We find that the superior internal information generated and collected by high quality employees can enhance managerial investment efficiency. This association is more pronounced in highly complicated firms, firms with more managerial shareholding or firms with higher board independence. The instrumental variable estimations help us establish a causal link between employee quality and investment efficiency. Finally, the validation tests show that firms operated by high-quality employees perform a more effective internal control system, and disclose high quality accounting reports, suggesting that the quality of internal information is indeed higher in these firms.
A Contest Model With Reference-Dependent Preferences

This paper introduces a two-stage winner-take-all contest model with reference-dependent preferences to study the determinants of conflict and its intensity. The existence of a Sub-game Perfect Nash equilibrium in pure strategies and characterization of the equilibrium are shown. Reference points are crucial in the decision of waging war and imply conflicts of higher intensity compared to standard models. The model delivers predictions in line with existing evidence and explains common empirical patterns in the conflict literature that previous models cannot account for. First, conflict is more likely to occur after negative income shocks since agents' current situation is perceived as a loss compared to the status quo. Second, income reduces the odds of conflict if agents are more risk-averse for gains than risk-seeker for losses.
An investigation on surface tensions of Pb-free solder materials

Abstract Surface tensions of some Pb-free solder systems such as Ag–Bi–Sn with cross-sections Ag/Bi = 1/1, Ag/Bi = 1/2, Ag/Bi = 2/1, In–Sn–Zn with cross-sections Sn/In = 1/1, Sn/In = 1/3 and (Ag7Cu3)100−x Snx with cross-section Ag/Cu = 7/3 are calculated from the sub-binary surface tension data using the models, such as the Muggianu, Kohler, Toop models, Butler’s equation and Chou’s General Solution Model (GSM) at 873, 923 and 1073 K, respectively. The surface tension of In–Sn–Zn increases wavily with increasing amount of Zn and it is found that the best models are the GSM for both cross-sections in question while GSM becomes the best model for (Ag7Cu3)100−x Snx alloy in the whole experimental range. Moreover, the surface tension of (Ag7Cu3)100−x Snx decreases slightly with increasing amount of Sn. The Muggianu, Butler and Butler models are determined as the best models for the cross-sections in the order given above for entire measurement range, respectively, and the surface tension of Ag–Bi–Sn decreases slightly with an increasing amount of Bi and Ag but increases with increasing Sn in liquid alloys.
Physical and Functional Characteristics of Broken Rice Kernels Caused by Moisture-Adsorption Fissuring

Fissuring caused by rapid moisture adsorption generates broken kernels upon milling; brokens are often ground to flour. The recent increase in demand for rice flour has promoted interest in brokens. This study investigated the physical and functional characteristics of brokens resulting from milling lots with various levels of moisture adsorption-induced fissuring. Two long-grain (LG) cultivars and one medium-grain (MG) cultivar were conditioned to five initial moisture contents (IMCs), rewetted, and then reconditioned to 12% moisture content. Brown rice fissure enumeration and milling analyses as well as size distribution and functionality analyses of brokens were conducted. As IMC decreased, the percentage of fissured kernels increased and, consequently, the amount of brokens generated increased. Although the number of fissures/kernel also increased with decreasing IMC, the mass distribution of the resultant brokens was not affected by IMC. Across all IMC levels, the mass percentage of the medium-sized .
Effect of FDI on Income Inequality in Nigeria: Does Trade Openness Matter?

The paper examines the effect of FDI and its interaction with trade openness on income inequality in Nigeria. In doing this, the DOLS estimator is employed to analyse annual time series data covering the period from 1981 to 2015. The study finds that FDI inflows positively affect income inequality. However, the interaction between FDI and trade openness negatively affects income inequality suggesting that greater openness of the economy to international trade would engender reduction of income inequality caused by FDI in the country. Further evidence from the study are that financial system development and economic development are crucial for reduction of income inequality in the country. Based on these, it is recommended that barrier to flow of trade should be cautiously relaxed, the financial system should be developed and effort should be made by the government to set the economy on the path of sustainable development.
Implementation by Codes of Rights

Implementation of a solution can be thought of as a way to design power distribution in a society such that for each admissible preference profile, the set of equilibrium outcomes coincides with the set of outcomes that the solution would select for it. By using the notion of a rights structure to formalize the idea of power distribution, Koray and Yildiz (2018) show that implementation (in core equilibria) by a right structure is equivalent to implementation via a rights structure in which only singleton coalitions have blocking powers - aka individual based rights structure. Since a natural way to design power distribution in a society is to design codes of rights, we formulate and fully characterize implementability by codes of rights as well as by codes of individual rights, and show that their insight do not extend to this notion of implementation. This result is robust and extends to alternative notions of core, such as that of externally stable core.
Money Creation, Bank Liquidity and Non-neutrality of Monetary Policy

This paper studies the implication of banks' money creation and liquidity management for monetary policy. When borrowing fiat money banks use a government bond as collateral, which pays a fixed stream of nominal dividend. A variation in fiat money's quantity alters its unit real value, thereby changing the real value of the bond. Under certain conditions, this change moves banks' lending rates by impacting on their liquidity constraint; therefore, fiat money is non-neutral. In general, any monetary policy, modeled as a change to the aggregate nominal portfolio of the bond and fiat money, moves bank lending rates if it alters the bond-to-fiat money ratio. Moreover, the rates of liquidity unconstrained banks move in the opposite direction to the rates of those maximally constrained. Technological changes that expand digital ways of payment generate inflationary pressures by lightening banks' liquidity burden.
Financial Flexibility Robustness

I examine how the robustness of investment opportunities influence firm payout policy and cash holdings. By exploiting new measures, the perturbations of q, a novel counterintuitive yet reasonable fact emerge: low robustness of investment opportunities (high perturbations of q) is able to spur firm propensity to pay dividends, lower repurchase shares, and decrease the cash a firm holds simultaneously. Specifically, firms that are likely to hold fewer amounts of cash when the robustness of investment opportunities is low, which is distinct from the standard channel of uncertainty. These results are consistent with firms' liquidity management policies being significantly shaped by robustness concerns.
Decentralized Governance on Two-Sided Platforms: Crowdsourcing, Learning, and Debiasing

Disputes over transactions on two-sided platforms are common and are usually arbitrated through platforms’ customer service departments or third-party service providers. In this paper, we study crowd-judging, a novel crowd-sourcing mechanism whereby users (buyers and sellers) volunteer as jurors to decide disputes arising from the platform. To understand this phenomenon, we use a rich dataset from the dispute resolution center at Taobao, a leading Chinese e-commerce platform. While this mechanism enhances resolution speed, there are concerns that crowd-jurors may exhibit a form of in-group bias (where buyers favor the buyer and sellers favor the seller in a dispute), and that such in-group bias may systematically sway case outcomes given the majority of users on such platforms are buyers. We find evidence consistent with this concern: on average, a seller juror is approximately 10% likelier to vote for a seller. Such bias is 70% higher among cases that are less clear-cut and decided by a thin margin. Conversely, the bias reduces dramatically as users gain crowd-judging experience: in-group bias when jurors have the sample-median level of experience is 95% lower than when jurors are completely inexperienced. This suggests learning-by-doing may mitigate biases associated with socioeconomic identification. Partly due to this learning effect, our simulation shows that in-group bias influences the outcomes of no more than 2% of cases under the current randomized case allocation process, and can be further reduced under dynamic policies that better allocate experienced jurors. Such findings offer promising evidence that crowd-sourcing can be an effective dispute resolution mechanism to govern online platforms, and that properly designed operating policies can further improve its efficacy.
Monetary Variables in the Determination of Stock Price Movements in Nigeria

This study critically examined the long and short run effect of monetary policy variables as determinants of stock price movements in Nigeria. Different studies have proffered different levels and directions of impact between the monetary policy variables and stock price movement and stock market performance in many countries. The difficulty in generalizing the result of their findings in every economy makes it significant to consider the peculiarities and economic realities of any country in concluding this relationship. This study therefore, observed the effect of money supply (M3), interest rate and exchange rate on stock price movement in Nigeria, seeking to know the direction of impact between the monetary policy variables and stock price movements. The study adopted the ex post facto research design to collect secondary data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin and World Bank data indicator site for the period 1994-2019. The data was on All Share Index (ASI) as proxy for stock market price; and monetary policy variables proxy by money supply (M3), exchange rate and interest rate. Employing the unit multiple regressions (OLS), ADF and Granger causality tests, the study found as follows: there is a unidirectional relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Which is to say that the monetary policy variables exert determining effect on stock price movements in Nigeria? Consequently, the study recommends that the focus of investors should be on the movement of the macroeconomic factors to influence changes in monetary policy; also, the trend of the global macroeconomic variables should be observed so as to prepare for the effect of shocks such as it were during the global economic meltdown; and policy makers also should observe the correlation between stock price movements and monetary policy variables in order to make effective policies for economic development.
Declining Real Interest Rates: The Role of Energy Prices in Energy Importers

This paper studies whether the upward trend of real energy prices since the 1990s can account for the decreasing trend of real interest rates in energy importers. Using VARs, I first provide empirical evidence that a rise in real energy prices leads to a fall in real interest rate in energy-importing G-7 countries. I then show, using a life-cycle model, that the increasing trend of the real energy price decreases the equilibrium real interest rate by about 1.5 percentage points between 1990 and 2018. Due to increases in the real energy price, energy consumption falls, which dampens consumption of manufactures because of the complementarity between energy and manufactures in consumption. Accordingly, aggregate consumption goes down, which puts downward pressure on the real interest rate. Moreover, the increased real energy price decreases energy inputs in production, and hence capital/energy ratio rises, inducing lower real interest rate via falls in the marginal product of capital. By simulating the model, I also find that increases in the real energy price have more influences on the declining real interest rate in energy importers during 1990-2018 than population aging.
Reappearing Dividends

During the last two decades of the 20th century, the propensity of U.S. firms to pay cash dividends declined significantly. Exacerbated by a sharp increase in stock repurchases, the trend away from dividends accelerated during the late 1990s leading some authors to conclude that dividend policy was shifting in a very fundamental way. This trend makes a sharp reversal starting in 2000. We investigate five possible reasons for why dividends are reappearing. Given the explosion in new firms during the 1990s, we find that a portion of this rebound is explained by the "maturity hypothesis. " A simple model that relies only on maturity factors also forecasts a recent turn in dividend payout. Further, we also find that some firms may have chosen to use dividends as a signal of "confidence" in the wake of investor concerns over corporate governance. Finally, firms have responded to the Bush dividend tax cut as one might expect, yet this story is not complete as the rebound in the dividends starts well before tax reform occurred. We do not find much support for the idea that the recent rebound is due simply to managers catering to the whims of investors, nor to a decrease in the availability of good investment projects. One hesitates to read too much into this rebound, yet our evidence is consistent with the idea that corporate payout policy appears to be shifting back in favor of conventional cash dividends.
Egyptian Economic and De-Democratization Trends

The literature on economic determinants of democratization has identified most importantly the effects of economic development and income distribution. In this regard, Egypt had exhibited higher average incomes and declining inequality between 1999 and 2012. However, by 2015, the level of income inequality had reverted near its level in 2008. Although income distribution data are not available for later years, trends in the composition of economic activity suggest that income inequality has likely continued to increase, disempowering the middle class further and contributing to de-democratization. A main puzzle during the build-up to the Arab Spring revolts of 2010-11 was the fact that income inequality in Tunisia and Egypt was relatively low in comparison to countries at similar stages of economic development. Especially for Egypt, this analysis had ignored the vast between-country and within-oil-exporting-country income inequalities, which, according to WID.world scholars' calculations, had rendered the Middle East the most unequal region in the world. Post-2011 trends have simultaneously integrated Egypt more closely with Gulf economies and transformed the Egyptian economy more closely to follow the investment patterns of the latter. Thus, the short-lived economic trends that fueled demands for democratization in Egypt have been reversed, underpinning the regression of her political system to resemble more closely those of her Gulf benefactors. Although large investments in infrastructure may potentially lead to enhanced productivity and economic re-empowerment of the middle class, past experiences of Gulf economies to which the Egyptian economy is converging suggest otherwise.
Information Processing Skills of Short Sellers: Empirical Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

We aim to answer if superior performance by short sellers’ is generated by processing public information rather than by exploiting private information. To achieve this, we analyze if short sellers with healthcare expertise outperform in short selling of non-healthcare stocks compared to those with no healthcare expertise. Since we expect that any short sellers’ private information about healthcare stocks is unlikely to be material for non-healthcare stocks, we conclude that any observed outperformance in non-healthcare stocks is more likely caused by processing public information. As an identification strategy, we interpret the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic as a treatment to short sellers with healthcare expertise. Our measures of healthcare expertise are based on pre-COVID-19 performance related to either holding or covering a short position in healthcare stocks. Using a unique German sample of daily short selling data, we find that treated short positions identified by general shorting (covering) outperformance are associated with lower 10-day CARs for non-healthcare stocks by an economically significant magnitude of 4.3 percent (7.2 percent). Robustness test rule out that our results are also driven by the use of private information or non information-based trading advantages such as better funding or borrowing ability of observed short sellers.