Do financial derivatives enhance or impede innovation? We aim to answer this question by examining the relationship between equity options markets and standard measures of firm innovation. Our baseline results show that firms with more options trading activity generate more patents and patent citations per dollar of R&D invested. We then investigate how more active options markets affect firms' innovation strategy. Our results suggest that firms with greater trading activity pursue a more creative, diverse and risky innovation strategy. We discuss potential underlying mechanisms and show that options appear to mitigate managerial career concerns that would induce managers to take actions that boost short-term performance measures. Finally, using several econometric specifications that try to account for the potential endogeneity of options trading, we argue that the positive effect of options trading on firm innovation is causal.

This first volume in a three-volume exposition of Shubik's vision of "mathematical institutional economics" explores a one-period approach to economic exchange with money, debt, and bankruptcy. This is the first volume in a three-volume exposition of Martin Shubik's vision of "mathematical institutional economics"--a term he coined in 1959 to describe the theoretical underpinnings needed for the construction of an economic dynamics. The goal is to develop a process-oriented theory of money and financial institutions that reconciles micro- and macroeconomics, using as a prime tool the theory of games in strategic and extensive form. The approach involves a search for minimal financial institutions that appear as a logical, technological, and institutional necessity, as part of the "rules of the game." Money and financial institutions are assumed to be the basic elements of the network that transmits the sociopolitical imperatives to the economy. Volume 1 deals with a one-period approach to economic exchange with money, debt, and bankruptcy. Volume 2 explores the new economic features that arise when we consider multi-period finite and infinite horizon economies. Volume 3 will consider the specific role of financial institutions and government, and formulate the economic financial control problem linking micro- and macroeconomics.

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine various problems in financial economics. Chapter 1 fills in a gap in the IPO literature by documenting a close connection between IPO underpricing and the long-term underperformance of IPOs. Firms going public in periods of low underpricing do not underperform in the long run, while firms going public in high underpricing periods do. Furthermore, IPOs in later stages of high underpricing periods underperform even relative to their offer prices, which suggests that many of the most "underpriced" IPOs are in fact priced above fundamental value. This result is unlikely to be explained by differences in risk, or to be driven by a peso problem. I also find that firms going public in later stages of high underpricing periods display worse operating performance and profitability, lower asset growth, lower investment rates and higher cash holdings. Finally, I provide evidence that investor sentiment is stronger in high-underpricing periods. These results are consistent with a setting in which low quality firms, in periods in which the average underpricing in the market is high, try to exploit investors' sentiment by going public. Chapter 2 looks at the return predictability information in Single Country Closed-End Fund (SCCEF) discounts. It is long argued that discounts in closed-end funds are caused by differences in sentiment between investors that trade the fund and investors that trade the underlying assets. SCCEFs provide an interesting setting given the clear market segmentation. American SCCEFs are priced by American investors, while underlying assets are mainly traded by investors in the respective country. I argue that if cross-sectional and time-series variation in SCCEFs are linked to differences in sentiment, then the SCCEF discount can be used to predict future performance of SCCEFs, international stock markets, or both. The evidence on international stock markets' return predictability using SCCEF discounts is mixed. A trading strategy designed to exploit potential differences in sentiment by buying and selling international stock indices delivers alphas of around 90bps per month in an International CAPM. Adding three extra factors: value, size and momentum in U.S. equity does not change the result. However, once we control for international value and momentum in stock markets, we no longer observe positive alphas for short-horizon investments. The evidence on SCCEF return predictability from SCCEF discounts is very strong. For all three asset pricing models considered, a strategy that exploits differences in sentiment yields positive alphas, with magnitudes ranging from 2% to 4% per month. In Chapter 3, I investigate how the stock market reacts to earnings surprises announced during major sport events in the U.S. In a rational and frictionless market, investors should not react differently to announcements released during sport events. However, major sport events combine two known psychological biases. First, sports can be distracting, impairing investors' judgment. Second, sports can change people's mood. Hence, through these biases, market prices could be affected. Considering the Super Bowl, World Series of Baseball and NBA finals I find that investors, immediately after sport events, underreact to positive surprises, and overreact to negative surprises in earnings. After this initial reaction, I find that, investors undo their 'mistakes' in the following weeks to the announcement. However, for the most negative and positive surprises, they over-compensate. In this study, I show that non relevant financial events have an impact on market prices. Moreover, I show that the observed impact cannot be explained only by limited attention, as investor mood seems to be crucial to explain investors' reactions.