IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trf/wpaper/388.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Path-Dependent Behavior with Asymmetric Information about Traders' Types

Author

Listed:
  • Testa, Alessia

Abstract

We define path-dependency as the generic phenomenon according to which agents take an action regardless of their private information. Path-dependency can be of two types contingent on whether agents act with the crowd (herding) or against the crowd (contrarianism). We consider a quote-driven market where traders can in some cases observe whether their predecessors were informed, although they cannot observe their private information, while in other cases they are left with the uncertainty that their predecessors acted purely for liquidity motives. In this setting we recover herding and contrarianism and we find that better-informed markets (i.e. where informed traders receive high precision signals) can generate path-dependent behavior more easily than poorly informed ones. Moreover, we illustrate how a market dominated by herding features a price that is more informative of the asset value than the price of a market where traders always follow their signal. We also discuss how contrarianism has the exact opposite effect by decreasing price informativeness.

Suggested Citation

  • Testa, Alessia, 2012. "Path-Dependent Behavior with Asymmetric Information about Traders' Types," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 388, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:trf:wpaper:388
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14058/1/388.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avery, Christopher & Zemsky, Peter, 1998. "Multidimensional Uncertainty and Herd Behavior in Financial Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 724-748, September.
    2. Glosten, Lawrence R. & Milgrom, Paul R., 1985. "Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 71-100, March.
    3. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    4. Andreas Park & Hamid Sabourian, 2011. "Herding and Contrarian Behavior in Financial Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(4), pages 973-1026, July.
    5. Chamley,Christophe P., 2004. "Rational Herds," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521530927.
    6. Chamley,Christophe P., 2004. "Rational Herds," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521824019.
    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. Christopher Boortz & Simon Jurkatis & Stephanie Kremer & Dieter Nautz, 2013. "Institutional Herding in Financial Markets: New Evidence through the Lens of a Simulated Model," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1336, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Dieter Nautz, "undated". "Herding in financial markets: Bridging the gap between theory and evidence," BDPEMS Working Papers 2013002, Berlin School of Economics.
    3. Christopher Boortz, 2016. "Irrational Exuberance and Herding in Financial Markets," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2016-016, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    4. Boortz, Christopher K. & Jurkatis, Simon & Kremer, Stephanie & Nautz, Dieter, 2013. "The impact of information risk and market stress on institutional trading: New evidence through the lens of a simulated herd model," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79728, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2009. "Herd Behavior in Financial Markets: An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(1), pages 206-233, March.
    6. Park, Andreas & Sgroi, Daniel, 2012. "Herding, contrarianism and delay in financial market trading," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1020-1037.
    7. Walther, A., 2012. "Asset price manipulation with several traders," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1242, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    8. Christophe Bisière & Jean-Paul Décamps & Stefano Lovo, 2015. "Risk Attitude, Beliefs Updating, and the Information Content of Trades: An Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1378-1397, June.
    9. Erik Eyster & Matthew Rabin, 2010. "Naïve Herding in Rich-Information Settings," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 221-243, November.
    10. Decamps, Jean-Paul & Lovo, Stefano, 2006. "Informational cascades with endogenous prices: The role of risk aversion," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 109-120, February.
    11. Andreas Park & Daniel Sgroi, 2008. "Herding and Contrarianism in a Financial Trading Experiment with Endogenous Timing," Working Papers tecipa-341, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    12. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2005. "Herd Behavior in a Laboratory Financial Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1427-1443, December.
    14. Christophe Chamley, 2005. "Complementarities in Information Acquisition with Short-Term Trades," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-156, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    15. Cipriani Marco & Guarino Antonio, 2008. "Herd Behavior and Contagion in Financial Markets," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, October.
    16. Simon Jurkatis & Stephanie Kremer & Dieter Nautz, 2012. "Correlated Trades and Herd Behavior in the Stock Market," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2012-035, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    17. Christophe Chamley, 2005. "Complementarities in Information Acquisition with Short-Term Trades," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2005-027, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    18. Eyster, Erik & Galeotti, Andrea & Kartik, Navin & Rabin, Matthew, 2014. "Congested observational learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 519-538.
    19. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John List, 2006. "Information Cascades: Evidence from An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," NBER Working Papers 12767, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Drehmann, Mathias & Oechssler, Jorg & Roider, Andreas, 2007. "Herding with and without payoff externalities -- an internet experiment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 391-415, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Herding; Contrarianism; Financial Markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:trf:wpaper:388. 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: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.