IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/men/wpaper/77_2021.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political Insider Trading: A narrow versus comprehensive approach

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Hanousek

    (Department of Finance, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Finance, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic)

  • Christos Pantzalis

    (Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance, Muma College of Business, BSN3403, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620)

  • Jung Chul Park

    (Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance, Muma College of Business, BSN3403, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620)

Abstract

We examine senators’ electronically filed stock transactions between 2012 and 2019 to assess the extent of politician’s insider trading. Our results suggest that senators use inside political information when investing and earn significant market-adjusted returns. To extend traditional return-based methods, we propose a new comprehensive approach based on abnormal idiosyncratic volatility (AIV), which captures the degree of information asymmetry around their trading dates. We document that senator trades are associated with substantially high levels of AIV, suggesting that they represent only a tip of the iceberg, since the mass of unfiled transactions using the same inside information remains undetected.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Hanousek & Christos Pantzalis & Jung Chul Park, 2021. "Political Insider Trading: A narrow versus comprehensive approach," MENDELU Working Papers in Business and Economics 2021-77, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:men:wpaper:77_2021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftp.mendelu.cz/RePEc/men/wpaper/77_2021.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yang, Yung Chiang & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Chu, 2020. "Is information risk priced? Evidence from abnormal idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 528-554.
    2. Vega, Clara, 2006. "Stock price reaction to public and private information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 103-133, October.
    3. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    4. Ziobrowski, Alan J. & Cheng, Ping & Boyd, James W. & Ziobrowski, Brigitte J., 2004. "Abnormal Returns from the Common Stock Investments of the U.S. Senate," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 661-676, December.
    5. Tahoun, Ahmed, 2014. "The role of stock ownership by US members of Congress on the market for political favors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 86-110.
    6. Terrance Odean, 1999. "Do Investors Trade Too Much?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1279-1298, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jan Hanousek & Hoje Jo & Christos Pantzalis & Jung Chul Park, 2023. "A Dilemma of Self-interest vs. Ethical Responsibilities in Political Insider Trading," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 137-167, September.
    2. Lof, Matthijs & van Bommel, Jos, 2023. "Asymmetric information and the distribution of trading volume," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Alan D. Jagolinzer & David F. Larcker & Gaizka Ormazabal & Daniel J. Taylor, 2020. "Political Connections and the Informativeness of Insider Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 1833-1876, August.
    4. Serkan Karadas, 2019. "Trading on Private Information: Evidence from Members of Congress," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 54(1), pages 85-131, February.
    5. Sun, Yuxin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2017. "Informed trading and the price impact of block trades: A high frequency trading analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 114-129.
    6. Turan G. Bali & Robert F. Engle & Yi Tang, 2017. "Dynamic Conditional Beta Is Alive and Well in the Cross Section of Daily Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3760-3779, November.
    7. Brown, Stephen & Hillegeist, Stephen A. & Lo, Kin, 2009. "The effect of earnings surprises on information asymmetry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 208-225, June.
    8. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    9. Jon Kerr & Gil Sadka & Ronnie Sadka, 2020. "Illiquidity and Price Informativeness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 334-351, January.
    10. Vinay Patel, 2015. "Price Discovery in US and Australian Stock and Options Markets," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 27, July-Dece.
    11. Peress, Joel & Schmidt, Daniel, 2021. "Noise traders incarnate: Describing a realistic noise trading process," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    12. Engelberg, Joseph E. & Reed, Adam V. & Ringgenberg, Matthew C., 2012. "How are shorts informed?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 260-278.
    13. Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2009. "Optimal financial education," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-9, January.
    14. Josef Fink, 2020. "A Review of the Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift," Working Paper Series, Social and Economic Sciences 2020-04, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Karl-Franzens-University Graz.
    15. Choi, Darwin, 2019. "Disposition sales and stock market liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 19-36.
    16. Bae, Kee-Hong & Yamada, Takeshi & Ito, Keiichi, 2008. "Interaction of investor trades and market volatility: Evidence from the Tokyo Stock Exchange," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 370-388, September.
    17. Laurent Germain & Fabrice Rousseau & Anne Vanhems, 2014. "Irrational Market Makers," Finance, Presses universitaires de Grenoble, vol. 35(1), pages 107-145.
    18. Olivier Guedj & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2004. "Experts' earning forecasts: bias, herding and gossamer information," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 500062, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    19. Jang, Jeewon, 2017. "Stock return anomalies and individual investors in the Korean stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA), pages 141-157.
    20. Sadka, Ronnie, 2011. "Liquidity risk and accounting information," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 144-152.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Abnormal idiosyncratic volatility; legislator’s trading; politician’s insider trading; STOCK Act;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:men:wpaper:77_2021. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Luděk Kouba (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/femencz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.