Open Access
Does family ownership always reduce default risk?
(Wiley, 2021) Abinzano Guillén, María Isabel; Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Martínez García, Beatriz; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Gestión de Empresas
This paper analyses the effect of family ownership on the outcome of the firm’s risk‐taking activities, measured by the company’s default risk. We show that family ownership reduces the probability of default, which is proxied by the Black–Scholes–Merton (BSM) model. Our study goes further than the initial approach by taking into account certain factors conditioning the aforementioned relationship. We find that the expected negative relationship between family ownership and default risk is modified when there is a significant participation of institutional investors, whose positive moderating influence intensifies if they are stable and long‐term oriented and/or during adverse financial circumstances.
Open Access
The impact of investor sentiment on stock returns in emerging markets. The case of Central European markets
(Taylor & Francis, 2015) Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Ferrer Zubiate, Elena; Santamaría Aquilué, Rafael; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
This paper studies the effect of investor sentiment on stock returns in three Central European markets: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The results show that sentiment is a key variable in the prices of stocks traded on these markets and its impact is stronger here than in more developed European markets. This effect is linked to stock characteristics, particularly those considered to make stocks more prone to the influences of investor sentiment. The evidence shows that the effect is not uniform across countries, since higher levels are found for Poland and the Czech Republic, thus confirming the role of country-specific factors in the impact of investor sentiment on stock prices. The results also confirm that sentiment is a twofold (global and local) phenomenon, in which the global dimension has much greater impact than the local dimension, at least in the markets considered. Finally, the paper has shown that sentiment does not spread, at least to any significant degree, through the movement of capital between markets. This strengthens the argument that sentiment is transmitted through a behavioral mechanism. If this argument proves correct, there is little likelihood of local regulatory action being very effective in limiting the perverse impact of asset bubbles.
Open Access
Intentional herding in stock markets: an alternative approach in an international context
(Edward Elgar, 2010) Blasco de las Heras, Natividad; Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Ferreruela Garcés, Sandra; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua
One of the issues of greatest concern in the world of finance is trying to understand how investors make decisions. The classic theoretical explanations are based on conditions of investor rationality and the perfection of markets, and the use of information available in the market as a decisive tool. In recent years the branch of behavioural finance has emerged strongly in the field to try to expand this vision of investor behaviour. Factors associated with the psychological and sociological behaviour of individuals have been introduced as significant elements that go some way to explain investor decisions. Thaler (1991) and Shefrin (2000), among others, have incorporated an emotional component into the classic models considering both visions as compatible and complementary. A survey of the history and contributions in this field of finance in recent years can be found in Sewell (2007).
Open Access
Is cognitive bias really present in analyst forecasts? The role of investor sentiment
(Elsevier, 2014) Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Ferrer Zubiate, Elena; Santamaría Aquilué, Rafael; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
This paper analyses four key markets within the European context. In this context, where the level of analyst coverage is lower than in the US setting, we aim to ascertain whether the origin of optimism in analyst forecasts in these markets is mainly strategic or whether it also contains an element of cognitive bias. Despite the fact that forecast errors lack the explanatory power to account for a significant percentage of the relationship between market sentiment and future stock returns, our new tests based on selection bias (SB1 and SB2), in conjunction with an analysis of abnormal trading volume, confirm the presence of both cognitive bias and strategic behaviour in analyst forecasts. This shows that, although regulation can reduce analyst optimism bias, the benefits are constrained by the fact that optimism bias is partly associated with cognitive bias.
Open Access
Sentiment-prone investors and volatility dynamics between spot and futures markets
(Elsevier, 2015) Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Ferrer Zubiate, Elena; Santamaría Aquilué, Rafael; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
This paper analyses the role of investor sentiment in the contemporaneous dynamics of spot and futures markets and in volatility spillovers between them. To explore this issue, we analyse spot and futures markets on stock market indexes in different countries: the S&P500 for the US, and a representative set of European indexes (CAC40, DAX30, FTSE100, IBEX35 and Eurostoxx50). Consistent with expectations, we have shown that the correlation is not stable with the level of investor sentiment. More specifically, the correlation between the two markets diminishes significantly during periods of high investor sentiment. Moreover, volatility shocks in either market are also found to have less impact during these periods. These results are compatible with behavioural finance theories suggesting that high investor sentiment leads to an increase in noise trading and a decline in arbitrage activity due to institutional investors’ attempts to limit their risk exposure.
Open Access
Measuring credit risk in family firms
(SAGE, 2020) Abinzano Guillén, María Isabel; Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Martínez García, Beatriz; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Gestión de Empresas
This article attempts to identify the default risk measure which best reflects the idiosyncratic context of public family firms. Seven accounting- and market-based measures are compared over a sample of 981 US family and non-family firms for the period 2000–2016. The results show that the Black–Scholes–Merton (BSM) measure gives the best fit in both types of firm. However, all the accounting-based measures, especially Altman’s Z-score, come closest to the market-based measures when used to assess the credit risk of family firms. The two types of measures also coincide more closely in their default risk orderings of family than of non-family firms. Useful practical implications can be drawn from these findings, which show that accounting-based measures can be used reliably in the absence of market data for family firms with similar characteristics to those in our sample.
Open Access
Investor sentiment effect in stock markets: stock characteristics or country-specific factors?
(Elsevier, 2013) Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Ferrer Zubiate, Elena; Santamaría Aquilué, Rafael; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
This paper analyzes the investor sentiment effect in four key European stock markets: France, Germany, Spain and the UK. The findings show that sentiment has a significant influence on returns, varying in intensity across markets. The variation appears to involve both stock characteristics and cross-country cultural or institutional differences. The results also show sensitivity to the choice of sentiment proxy.
Open Access
Does the betting industry price gender? Evidence from professional tennis
(SAGE Publications, 2021) Barrutiabengoa Ortubai, Joxe Maria; Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Muga Caperos, Luis Fernando; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Gestión de Empresas
This research addresses the importance of gender in the pricing process of the sports betting industry. Specifically, we investigate the impact of gender in the prices that bookmakers offer for tennis matches. Despite widespread evidence of gender bias both in the practice of the sport and its media coverage, tennis is one of the sports that has done most to achieve equality. The analysis of 51,881 tennis matches reveals that betting firms quote higher prices for women's matches than for men's, even when considering uncertainty due to the surprise factor and the media attention. The separate analysis of two bookmakers strengthens the evidence for the role of media attention as a source of gender-related information asymmetry.
Open Access
If the bitcoin market grows, size matters
(Taylor & Francis, 2021) Blasco de las Heras, Natividad; Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
This paper studies the herding behaviour among different exchanges trading bitcoin. The analysis allows us to conclude that the size of the exchange is an influencing parameter. Since 2018, when the significant growth in the number of exchanges became a reality, smaller exchanges have shown strong herding behaviour, whereas large exchanges seem to respond to their own information and beliefs and lead the process of price definition. This result may originate some temporary profitable strategies in the process of evolution towards efficiency according to the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis.
Open Access
Market sentiment: a key factor of investors' imitative behaviour
(Wiley, 2012) Blasco de las Heras, Natividad; Corredor Casado, María Pilar; Ferreruela Garcés, Sandra; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua
The aim of this paper is to explore herding behavior among investors in order to determine its rational and emotional component factors and identify relationships among them. We apply causality tests to evaluate the impact of return and market sentiment on herding intensity. The herding intensity is quantified using the measure developed by Patterson and Sharma (2006). The research was conducted during the period 1997-2003 in the Spanish stock market, where the presence of herding has been confirmed. The results reveal that the herding intensity depends on past returns and sentiment or subjective assessments and confirm the presence of both a rational and an emotional factor.