IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/germec/v11y2010i3p381-396.html

Acquisition of Information and Share Prices: An Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Dissonance

Author

Listed:
  • Argentesi Elena

    (Università di Bologna,Bologna, Italy)

  • Lütkepohl Helmut

    (European University Institute,Fiesole, FI, Italy)

  • Motta Massimo

    (ICEA - Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona Graduate School of Economics,Barcelona, Spain)

Abstract

This paper deals with the determinants of agents’ acquisition of information. Our econometric evidence shows that the general index of Italian share-prices and the series of Italy’s financial newspaper sales are cointegrated, and the former series Granger-causes the latter, thereby giving support to the cognitive dissonance hypothesis: (non-professional) agents tend to buy the newspaper when share prices are high and not to buy it when share prices are low. Instead, we do not find support for the hypothesis that the agents acquire information in order to trade in the stock market: we find no relationship between quantities exchanged in the market and newspaper sales, nor between stock market volatility and newspaper sales.

Suggested Citation

  • Argentesi Elena & Lütkepohl Helmut & Motta Massimo, 2010. "Acquisition of Information and Share Prices: An Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Dissonance," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 381-396, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:germec:v:11:y:2010:i:3:p:381-396
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0475.2009.00495.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2009.00495.x
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2009.00495.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Riccardo Ferretti & Francesco Pattarin, 2008. "Is public information really public? The role of newspapers," Centro Studi di Banca e Finanza (CEFIN) (Center for Studies in Banking and Finance) 08013, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    2. M. Middeldorp & S. Rosenkranz, 2008. "Information acquisition in an experimental asset market," Working Papers 08-25, Utrecht School of Economics.
    3. Riccardo Ferretti & Andrea Cipollini & Francesco Pattarin, 2016. "Can an unglamorous non-event affect prices? The role of newspapers," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1142847-114, December.
    4. Bellofatto, Anthony & Broihanne, Marie-Hélène & D'Hondt, Catherine, 2019. "Appetite for information and trading behavior," LIDAM Discussion Papers LFIN 2019002, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    5. Diefeng Peng & Yulei Rao & Mei Wang, 2016. "Do Top 10 Lists of Daily Stock Returns Attract Investor Attention? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 16(4), pages 565-593, December.
    6. Joshy Easaw & Atanu Ghoshray & Saeed Heravi, 2014. "Households' Forming Subjective Expectations Using Perceived News: Do Shocks to ‘Good’ News Matter More Than ‘Bad’ News?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82(1), pages 1-16, January.
    7. Riccardo Ferretti & Francesco Pattarin, 2008. "Is public information really public? The role of newspapers," Centro Studi di Banca e Finanza (CEFIN) (Center for Studies in Banking and Finance) 0008, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    8. Abreu, Margarida & Mendes, Victor, 2012. "Information, overconfidence and trading: Do the sources of information matter?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 868-881.
    9. repec:use:tkiwps:2525 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Mark Bowden, 2015. "A model of information flows and confirmatory bias in financial markets," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 38(2), pages 197-215, October.
    11. Anthony Bellofatto & Marie-Hélène Broihanne & Catherine D’Hondt, 2025. "Financial knowledge acquisition and trading behavior: empirical evidence from an online information tool," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 39(1), pages 1-45, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:bpj:germec:v:11:y:2010:i:3:p:381-396. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

    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.