Conformism and Public News

We study a model where investment decisions are based on investors’ information about the unknown and endogenous return of the investment. The information of investors consists of endogenously determined messages sold by financial analysts who have access to both public and private information on th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Rochon, Celine
Other Authors: Desgranges, Gabriel
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2011
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:We study a model where investment decisions are based on investors’ information about the unknown and endogenous return of the investment. The information of investors consists of endogenously determined messages sold by financial analysts who have access to both public and private information on the return of the investment. We assume that the return of the investment is correlated with the aggregate investment. This results into a beauty contest among analysts (or a "conformism" effect). In equilibrium, analysts sell all the information they have to all the investors. A striking result is that there are sometimes multiple equilibria. There are equilibria where the beauty contest is exacerbated. Because of the correlation across analysts' information sources, not all the information available in the economy is transmitted to investors
Physical Description:26 pages
ISBN:9781455217939