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Are Investors Naive About Incentives?

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  • Ulrike Malmendier
  • Devin Shanthikumar

Abstract

Traditional economic analysis of markets with asymmetric information assumes that uninformed agents account for the incentives of informed agents to distort information. We analyze whether investors in the stock market internalize such incentives. Stock recommendations of security analysts are likely to be biased upwards, particularly if the issuing analyst is affiliated with the underwriter of the recommended stock. Using the NYSE Trades and Quotations database, we find that large (institutional) traders account for the upward bias and exert no abnormal trade reaction to buy recommendations, and significant selling pressure in response to hold recommendations. Small (individual) traders do not account for the upward shift and exert significantly positive pressure for buys and zero pressure for hold recommendations. Moreover, large traders discount positive recommendations from affiliated analysts more than from unaffiliated analysts, while small traders do not distinguish between them. The naive trading behavior of small investors induces negative abnormal portfolio returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Ulrike Malmendier & Devin Shanthikumar, 2004. "Are Investors Naive About Incentives?," NBER Working Papers 10812, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10812
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    Cited by:

    1. Navin Kartik, 2009. "Strategic Communication with Lying Costs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1359-1395.
    2. Mehran, Hamid & Stulz, Rene M., 2007. "The economics of conflicts of interest in financial institutions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 267-296, August.
    3. Ljungqvist, Alexander & Marston, Felicia & Starks, Laura T. & Wei, Kelsey D. & Yan, Hong, 2007. "Conflicts of interest in sell-side research and the moderating role of institutional investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 420-456, August.
    4. Roger K. Loh & René M. Stulz, 2011. "When Are Analyst Recommendation Changes Influential?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(2), pages 593-627.
    5. Frank Fehle & Sergey Tsyplakov & Vladimir Zdorovtsov, 2005. "Can Companies Influence Investor Behaviour through Advertising? Super Bowl Commercials and Stock Returns," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(5), pages 625-647, November.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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