IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v103y2021ics0264999321001851.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is stock price informativeness shaped by our genes?

Author

Listed:
  • Todea, Alexandru
  • Petrescu, Daiana Florina

Abstract

Do deeply rooted genetic traits, dating thousands of years, affect how information is impounded into stock prices nowadays? It is an intriguing idea, but one that stems from several studies that support the underlying economic intuition because genetic factors affect psychological traits, such as trust and creativity, that are known to influence price informativeness. Using data from 42 countries during 2004–2016, we investigate the impact of genetic diversity on stock price informativeness and find strong evidence in support of a hump-shaped relationship, that is, intermediate levels of genetic diversity are associated with high price informativeness and low/high genetic diversity is associated with low price informativeness. Institutional quality affects this relationship nonlinearly. Hence, improving the quality of institutions has positive effects on price informativeness, especially for nations with high/low genetic diversity.

Suggested Citation

  • Todea, Alexandru & Petrescu, Daiana Florina, 2021. "Is stock price informativeness shaped by our genes?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s0264999321001851
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2021.105596
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999321001851
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2021.105596?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2016. "War and Relatedness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(5), pages 925-939, December.
    2. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    3. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, February.
    4. Dow, James & Gorton, Gary, 1997. "Stock Market Efficiency and Economic Efficiency: Is There a Connection?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1087-1129, July.
    5. Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2000. "Financial markets and the allocation of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 187-214.
    6. Zhang, Wei & Li, Xiao & Shen, Dehua & Teglio, Andrea, 2016. "R2 and idiosyncratic volatility: Which captures the firm-specific return variation?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 298-304.
    7. Robinson, Peter M, 1988. "Root- N-Consistent Semiparametric Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 931-954, July.
    8. Bai, Jennie & Philippon, Thomas & Savov, Alexi, 2016. "Have financial markets become more informative?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 625-654.
    9. Paolo Colla & Antonio Mele, 2010. "Information Linkages and Correlated Trading," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 203-246, January.
    10. Pevzner, Mikhail & Xie, Fei & Xin, Xiangang, 2015. "When firms talk, do investors listen? The role of trust in stock market reactions to corporate earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 190-223.
    11. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2018. "Ancestry and development: New evidence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 748-762, August.
    12. Chaudhry, Azam & Ikram, Rabia, 2015. "Does genetic proximity to high growth countries affect a country's own growth?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 444-453.
    13. Jin, Li & Myers, Stewart C., 2006. "R2 around the world: New theory and new tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 257-292, February.
    14. Guillermo Llorente & Roni Michaely & Gideon Saar & Jiang Wang, 2002. "Dynamic Volume-Return Relation of Individual Stocks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 1005-1047.
    15. Adcock, Christopher & Hua, Xiuping & Mazouz, Khelifa & Yin, Shuxing, 2014. "Does the stock market reward innovation? European stock index reaction to negative news during the global financial crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(PB), pages 470-491.
    16. Ager, Philipp & Brückner, Markus, 2013. "Immigrants' Genes: Genetic Diversity and Economic Development in the US," MPRA Paper 51906, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Patrick J. Kelly, 2014. "Information Efficiency and Firm-Specific Return Variation," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-44.
    18. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2007. "Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2006," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4280, The World Bank.
    19. Saha, Anjan K. & Mishra, Vinod, 2020. "Genetic distance, economic growth and top income shares: Evidence from OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 37-47.
    20. Miguel A. Ferreira & Paul A. Laux, 2007. "Corporate Governance, Idiosyncratic Risk, and Information Flow," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 951-989, April.
    21. He, Wen & Li, Donghui & Shen, Jianfeng & Zhang, Bohui, 2013. "Large foreign ownership and stock price informativeness around the world," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 211-230.
    22. Faria, Hugo J. & Montesinos-Yufa, Hugo M. & Morales, Daniel R. & Navarro, Carlos E., 2016. "Unbundling the roles of human capital and institutions in economic development," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 108-128.
    23. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:1:p:65-105 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Emilio Depetris-Chauvin & Ömer Özak, 2020. "The origins of the division of labor in pre-industrial times," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 297-340, September.
    25. Kumar, Sanjesh & Singh, Baljeet, 2019. "Barriers to the international diffusion of technological innovations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 74-86.
    26. Louis Putterman & David N. Weil, 2010. "Post-1500 Population Flows and The Long-Run Determinants of Economic Growth and Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1627-1682.
    27. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:623-650 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Camelia M Kuhnen & Joan Y Chiao, 2009. "Genetic Determinants of Financial Risk Taking," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(2), pages 1-4, February.
    29. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2018. "The Out of Africa Hypothesis of Comparative Economic Development: Common Misconceptions," Working Papers 2018-13, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    30. Qi Chen & Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang, 2007. "Price Informativeness and Investment Sensitivity to Stock Price," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 619-650.
    31. Söhnke M. Bartram & Gregory Brown & René M. Stulz, 2012. "Why Are U.S. Stocks More Volatile?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1329-1370, August.
    32. Cronqvist, Henrik & Siegel, Stephan, 2014. "The genetics of investment biases," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 215-234.
    33. Faias, José A. & Ferreira, Miguel A., 2017. "Does institutional ownership matter for international stock return comovement?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 64-83.
    34. Nuno Fernandes & Miguel A. Ferreira, 2009. "Insider Trading Laws and Stock Price Informativeness," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1845-1887, May.
    35. Barnea, Amir & Cronqvist, Henrik & Siegel, Stephan, 2010. "Nature or nurture: What determines investor behavior?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(3), pages 583-604, December.
    36. Giannetti, Mariassunta & Zhao, Mengxin, 2019. "Board Ancestral Diversity and Firm-Performance Volatility," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 1117-1155, June.
    37. Chan, Kalok & Chan, Yue-Cheong, 2014. "Price informativeness and stock return synchronicity: Evidence from the pricing of seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 36-53.
    38. David Cesarini & Magnus Johannesson & Paul Lichtenstein & Björn Wallace, 2009. "Heritability of Overconfidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 617-627, 04-05.
    39. Dasgupta, Sudipto & Gan, Jie & Gao, Ning, 2010. "Transparency, Price Informativeness, and Stock Return Synchronicity: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(5), pages 1189-1220, October.
    40. Andrés Fernández & César E. Tamayo, 2017. "From Institutions To Financial Development And Growth: What Are The Links?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 17-57, February.
    41. Avanidhar Subrahmanyam & Sheridan Titman, 1999. "The Going‐Public Decision and the Development of Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 1045-1082, June.
    42. Wang, Cong, 2013. "Can institutions explain cross country differences in innovative activity?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 128-145.
    43. Rajagopal, 2014. "Organizations and Innovation," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Architecting Enterprise, chapter 3, pages 58-86, Palgrave Macmillan.
    44. Feld, Lars P. & Voigt, Stefan, 2003. "Economic growth and judicial independence: cross-country evidence using a new set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 497-527, September.
    45. Todea, Alexandru & Buglea, Alexandra Maria, 2017. "Individualism and stock price reaction to market-wide information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 4-6.
    46. Vincenzo Verardi & Nicolas Debarsy, 2012. "Robinson's square root of N consistent semiparametric regression estimator in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(4), pages 726-735, December.
    47. Ayal, Eliezer B. & Karras, Georgios, 1996. "Bureaucracy, investment, and growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 233-239, May.
    48. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Zhang, Hao & Li, Liuchuang & Tian, Gaoliang, 2014. "Press freedom, externally-generated transparency, and stock price informativeness: International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 299-310.
    49. Eun, Cheol S. & Wang, Lingling & Xiao, Steven C., 2015. "Culture and R2," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 283-303.
    50. Philip Bond & Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "The Real Effects of Financial Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-360, October.
    51. Cardella, Eric & Kalcheva, Ivalina & Shang, Danjue, 2018. "Financial markets and genetic variation," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 64-89.
    52. Li, Xiaorong & Wang, Steven Shuye & Wang, Xue, 2017. "Trust and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 74-91.
    53. Chan, Kalok & Hameed, Allaudeen, 2006. "Stock price synchronicity and analyst coverage in emerging markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 115-147, April.
    54. Ang, James B. & Kumar, Sanjesh, 2014. "Financial development and barriers to the cross-border diffusion of financial innovation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 43-56.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Ling & Ruan, Jianqing, 2023. "Conflict or harmony? The impact of family cultural diversity on children's educational attainment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    2. Li, Weiping & Li, Tingyu & Jiang, Dequan & Zhang, Xuezhi, 2024. "Bridging the information gap: How digitalization shapes stock price informativeness," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    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. De Cesari, Amedeo & Huang-Meier, Winifred, 2015. "Dividend changes and stock price informativeness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-17.
    2. Anita Todea, 2018. "Culture And Stock Price Reaction To Private Information," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 21, pages 117-130, June.
    3. Todea Anita, 2018. "Financial Literacy and Stock Price Informativeness: a Cross-Country Study," Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Oeconomica, Sciendo, vol. 63(1), pages 63-72, April.
    4. Bennett, Benjamin & Stulz, René & Wang, Zexi, 2020. "Does the stock market make firms more productive?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 281-306.
    5. Dang, Tung Lam & Dang, Man & Hoang, Luong & Nguyen, Lily & Phan, Hoang Long, 2020. "Media coverage and stock price synchronicity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    6. Pereira da Silva, Paulo, 2021. "Do managers pay attention to the market? A review of the relationship between stock price informativeness and investment," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    7. Chue, Timothy K. & Gul, Ferdinand A. & Mian, G. Mujtaba, 2019. "Aggregate investor sentiment and stock return synchronicity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    8. Hamdi Ben-Nasr & Abdullah Alshwer, 2015. "How Informed Stock Trading Can Affect Labor Investment Efficiency," Proceedings of Business and Management Conferences 2304077, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    9. Houdou Basse Mama, 2017. "The interaction between stock prices and corporate investment: is Europe different?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 315-351, March.
    10. Dang, Tung Lam & Moshirian, Fariborz & Zhang, Bohui, 2015. "Commonality in news around the world," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 82-110.
    11. Persakis, Antonios & Iatridis, George Emmanuel, 2023. "How economic uncertainty influences the performance of investor perceptions and behavior," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    12. Joachim Gassen & Hollis A. Skaife & David Veenman, 2020. "Illiquidity and the Measurement of Stock Price Synchronicity," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(1), pages 419-456, March.
    13. Doan, Anh-Tuan & Phan, Thu & Lin, Kun-Li, 2020. "Governance quality, bank price synchronicity and political uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 231-262.
    14. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Cosset, Jean-Claude, 2014. "State Ownership, Political Institutions, and Stock Price Informativeness: Evidence from Privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 179-199.
    15. Wei Hao & Andrew Prevost & Udomsak Wongchoti, 2018. "Are Low Equity R2 Firms More or Less Transparent? Evidence from the Corporate Bond Market," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 865-909, December.
    16. Kee-Hong Bae & Jin-Mo Kim & Yang Ni, 2013. "Is Firm-specific Return Variation a Measure of Information Efficiency?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 407-445, December.
    17. Yunsen Chen & Jianqiao Huang & Xiao Li & Qingbo Yuan, 2022. "Does stock market liberalization improve stock price efficiency? Evidence from China," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7-8), pages 1175-1210, July.
    18. Li, Mingsheng & Liu, Desheng & Peng, Hongfeng & Zhang, Luxiu, 2020. "Does low synchronicity mean more or less informative prices? Evidence from an emerging market," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    19. Zhang, Zuochao & Shen, Dehua, 2024. "Firm-specific new media sentiment and price synchronicity," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    20. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Alshwer, Abdullah A., 2016. "Does stock price informativeness affect labor investment efficiency?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 249-271.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stock price informativeness; Synchronicity; Private trading information; Genetic diversity; Institutional quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General

    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:eee:ecmode:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s0264999321001851. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    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.