People

We show that attention constraints of decision makers function as barriers to financial inclusion. Using administrative data on retail loan screening processes, we find that loan officers exert less effort reviewing applicants from unattractive social or economic backgrounds and reject them more frequently than justified by credit quality. More importantly, when quasi-random workload variations tighten officer attention constraints, unattractive applicants receive even worse treatment—review-time halves and approval rates drop by approximately 40%—while attractive applicants are not affected. Our findings suggest that financial technologies that reduce information-processing costs may promote more balanced financial access.

We examine the information asymmetry between local and nonlocal investors with a large dataset of stock message board postings. We document that abnormal relative postings of a firm, that is, unusual changes in the volume of postings from local versus nonlocal investors, capture locals' information advantage. This measure positively predicts firms' short-term stock returns as well as those of peer firms in the same city. Sentiment analysis shows that posting activities primarily reflect good news, potentially due to social transmission bias and short-sales constraints. We identify the information driving return predictability through content-based analysis. Abnormal relative postings also lead analysts' forecast revisions. Overall, investors' interactions on social media contain valuable geography-based private information. Supporting Information

[This article discusses domestic violence. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you are not to blame, what is happening is not your fault. There are numerous resources and refuges available to you. They are listed at the end of this article.]

Stock returns during the week are negatively associated with the reported incidence of domestic violence during the weekend. This relationship is primarily driven by negative returns. The incidence of domestic violence increases with the magnitude of losses, and the effect increases with local stock market participation. Our findings suggest that negative wealth shocks caused by stock market crashes can affect stress levels within intimate relationships, escalate arguments, and trigger domestic violence. Stock market losses may reduce household utility beyond the shock to financial wealth, supporting gain-loss models where disutility from losses outweighs the utility from gains of a similar magnitude.

We provide a psychological explanation for the delayed price response to news about economically linked firms. We show that the return predictability of economically linked firms depends on the nearness to the 52-week high stock price. The interaction between news about economically linked firms and the nearness to the 52-week high can partially explain the underreaction to news about customers, geographic neighbors, industry peers, or foreign industries. We also find that analysts react to news about economically linked firms but the 52-week high effect reduces such reactions, providing direct evidence that the 52-week high affects the belief-updating process.

What could be the result if some compelling opportunities, like lottery jackpots, were potentially lucrative enough to distract the investors' attention from monitoring the stock market?