False Idols: The Perils of 'Democratizing' Financial Markets

US stock markets have created the greatest wealth in human history. This wealth, however, has not been shared or distributed equally. I seek to understand the way in which income disparities work to undermine mechanisms within the market itself. This Thesis addresses a proposed means for making wealth creation more equitable - so-called ‘democratization’ of the stock markets. I argue that one iteration of the approach, exemplified by the retail trading firm Robinhood, does not fulfill this equity ideal. Robinhood makes it cheaper and easier for ‘regular folks’ to get into finance. By way of both its business model and app design and user interface, it has detrimental effects on equity in financial markets. Financial markets can be a force for good, but only as long as they operate to meet their own appropriate goals of efficiently and productively allocating capital resources. Robinhood-style trading, however, creates an environment more similar to a casino than an auction, potentially harming Robinhood traders and distracting finance professionals with the lure of easy new money. Wealth generation in this context comes apart from the allocative purpose of the market. This concern can be mitigated with intelligently designed adjustments to the system that align profitability with ethicality. Such behavioral and structural changes can originate from market participants, technology providers who create the platforms used by participants, or market regulators

Qualitative Research in Gambling

Gambling is both a multi-billion-dollar international industry and a ubiquitous social and cultural phenomenon. It is also undergoing significant change, with new products and technologies, regulatory models, changing public attitudes and the sheer scale of the gambling enterprise necessitating innovative and mixed methodologies that are flexible, responsive and ‘agile’. This book seeks to demonstrate that researchers should look beyond the existing disciplinary territory and the dominant paradigm of ‘problem gambling’ in order to follow those changes across territorial, political, technical, regulatory and conceptual boundaries. The book draws on cutting-edge qualitative work in disciplines including geography, organisational studies, sociology, East Asian studies and anthropology to explore the production and consumption of risk, risky places, risk technologies, the gambling industry and connections between gambling and other kinds of speculation such as financial derivatives. In doing so it addresses some of the most important issues in contemporary social science, including: the challenges of studying deterritorialised social phenomena; globalising technologies and local markets; regulation as it operates across local, regional and international scales; and the rise of games, virtual worlds and social media

Decision Making Under Uncertainty Among Agricultural Commodity Traders

Understanding how humans behave has received increased attention in research in the most recent decades. While insights into human behavior are essential for the functioning of markets, these insights are also crucial for the guidance of policymaking and public spending decisions to ensure that markets are fair and accessible for all. This research has the unique opportunity to use a dataset of commercial grain trader transactions to study the decision-making and behavior of commercial traders in agricultural commodity markets rather than institutional investors or speculators. Paper one focuses on the performance of commercial grain traders and their ability to perform above expectations consistently and the role of gender and experience in achieving their performance. First, a Fisher Exact ranking test is consulted in assessing the ability of traders to perform persistently in two consecutive periods. Next, a top and bottom rank test is used to evaluate the magnitude of their profitability over successive periods. In addition to the two tests for persistent trader performance, the influence of gender and experience were also investigated in paper one. The second paper focuses on the use of reference points in the decision-making of commercial grain traders. For this study, a two-way panel data model was chosen to test the influence of a trader’s past performance or commodity price level, grain basis, influenced the purchasing decisions of commercial grain traders when purchasing grain with forward contracts. Past trader performance is measured in trader margin, calculated after a transaction is completed. The amount of bushels purchased and the forward contract length were investigated to capture risk in commodity markets by the size of the transaction or duration of the forward contract. Finally, in the third paper, the role of the United States Department of Agriculture World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE) report is investigated regarding its public value compared to private estimates that try to forecast the stocks-use-ratio of commodities. In this paper, we also analyze the reaction of corn producers and not only the commercial grain traders. Further, the different grain marketing seasons and weeks around the release of the WASDE were tested for their importance in making buying or selling decisions in corn markets

Roswell Daily Record, 12-20-1907

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/roswell_record_news/2314/thumbnail.jp

Bitcoin and the Japanese Retail Investor

The objective of this research is to examine the Bitcoin rally of 2017 as it occurred in Japan and establish a greater context for why it was the Japanese retail investors that propelled the nation to being the largest trader of the cryptocurrency at the end of the year. This dissertation begins with the examination of the technical and economical properties of Bitcoin by classifying it as fulfilling two roles: that of a means of payment and that of an investment commodity. Following that is a description of Bitcoin’s roots and the history of its non-speculative usage. These chapters serve as a base for examining the cryptocurrency’s role in Japan. The third chapter examines the Japanese retail investor and the Japanese retail investment landscape with a focus on the question of the low rates of risk-asset participation in face of a favorable investment environment. Historical context is drawn upon to argue that the present situation, wherein most financial assets are kept as cash, is rather the result of the historical path dependence than the present-day conditions in which Japanese retail investors operate. The final chapter addresses the question of high-risk activities in the form of gambling and margin trading by a group of predominantly middle-aged men and connects this propensity to engage in zero-sum games with Bitcoin’s success in Japan. The author argues that the solitary practice of high-risk financial activities enabled by trusted institutions is separate from the general savings tradition that suffered shocks following the low interest-rate regime and that it was the high-risk gambles that became the primary cause for the popularity of Bitcoin. The dissertation concludes with the argument that the success of Bitcoin in 2017 had been in no small part achieved precisely by inverting the hard-line libertarian values of its creators and making it a centrally-held commodity offered by a banking-like institution with a strong public presence

Albuquerque Evening Citizen, 03-29-1907

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/abq_citizen_news/4555/thumbnail.jp

A Critical Analysis of the Resolution of the Malaysian Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council: A Case Study of the Crude Palm Oil Futures Contract

Please see attached file abstract.pd

Sunk cost accounting and entrapment in corporate acquisitions and financial markets : an experimental analysis

Sunk cost accounting refers to the empirical finding that individuals tend to let their decisions be influenced by costs made at an earlier time in such a way that they are more risk seeking than they would be had they not incurred these costs. Such behaviour violates the axioms of economic theory which states individuals should only consider incremental costs and benefits when executing investments. This dissertation is concerned whether the pervasive sunk cost phenomenon extends to corporate acquisitions and financial markets. 122 students from the University of St Andrews participated in three experiments exploring the use of sunk costs in interactive negotiation contexts and financial markets. Experiment I elucidates that subjects value the sunk cost issue higher than other issues in a multi-issue negotiation. Experiment II illustrates that bidders are influenced by the sunk costs of competing bidders in a first price, sealed-bid, common-value auction. In financial markets their exists an analogous concept to sunk cost accounting known as the disposition effect. This explains the tendency of investors to sell “winning” stocks and hold “losing” stocks. Experiment III demonstrates that trading strategies in an experimental equity market are influenced by a pre-trading brokerage cost. Not only are subjects influenced in the direction that reduces the disposition effect but also trading is diminished. Without the brokerage cost there was a significant disposition effect. JEL-Classifications C70, C90, D44, D80, D81, G1