IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/beexfi/v27y2020ics2214635019302965.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gambling activity and stock price volatility: A cross-country analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Blau, Benjamin M.
  • Whitby, Ryan J.

Abstract

Shiller (2000) contends that gambling activity might promote risk-taking by individuals in other areas, such as firm decision making or in financial markets. In this study, we test the hypothesis that favorable attitudes towards gambling impact country-level stock price volatility. Using American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) to control for differing market structures, we find that countries with more gaming institutions, higher gambling losses per adult, and legalized online gambling have less stable stock prices. These results are robust to different measures of volatility and controls for both firm-specific characteristics and macroeconomic conditions. These findings support the idea that a country’s culture toward gambling might generate greater levels of volatility in the country’s financial markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Blau, Benjamin M. & Whitby, Ryan J., 2020. "Gambling activity and stock price volatility: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:27:y:2020:i:c:s2214635019302965
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2020.100338
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214635019302965
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbef.2020.100338?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Flavin, Marjorie A, 1983. "Excess Volatility in the Financial Markets: A Reassessment of the Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(6), pages 929-956, December.
    2. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December.
    3. Wu, Guojun, 2001. "The Determinants of Asymmetric Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 837-859.
    4. Shiller, Robert J, 1979. "The Volatility of Long-Term Interest Rates and Expectations Models of the Term Structure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1190-1219, December.
    5. Christie, Andrew A., 1982. "The stochastic behavior of common stock variances : Value, leverage and interest rate effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 407-432, December.
    6. Grossman, Sanford J & Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "The Determinants of the Variability of Stock Market Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 222-227, May.
    7. Singleton, Kenneth J, 1980. "Expectations Models of the Term Structure and Implied Variance Bounds," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(6), pages 1159-1176, December.
    8. Olivier J. Blanchard & Mark W. Watson, 1982. "Bubbles, Rational Expectations and Financial Markets," NBER Working Papers 0945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    10. Andrew J. Patton & Kevin Sheppard, 2015. "Good Volatility, Bad Volatility: Signed Jumps and The Persistence of Volatility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 683-697, July.
    11. Arestis, Philip & Demetriades, Panicos O & Luintel, Kul B, 2001. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: The Role of Stock Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(1), pages 16-41, February.
    12. Pagano, Marco, 1993. "Financial markets and growth: An overview," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 613-622, April.
    13. Venkat R. Eleswarapu & Kumar Venkataraman, 2006. "The Impact of Legal and Political Institutions on Equity Trading Costs: A Cross-Country Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 1081-1111.
    14. Jones, Charles M & Kaul, Gautam & Lipson, Marc L, 1994. "Transactions, Volume, and Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(4), pages 631-651.
    15. Karpoff, Jonathan M., 1987. "The Relation between Price Changes and Trading Volume: A Survey," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 109-126, March.
    16. Harrison Hong & José Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2006. "Asset Float and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1073-1117, June.
    17. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2008. "Stocks as Lotteries: The Implications of Probability Weighting for Security Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2066-2100, December.
    18. G. Andrew Karolyi, 2004. "The Role of American Depositary Receipts in the Development of Emerging Equity Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 670-690, August.
    19. Daniel Dorn & Paul Sengmueller, 2009. "Trading as Entertainment?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(4), pages 591-603, April.
    20. Bekaert, Geert & Wu, Guojun, 2000. "Asymmetric Volatility and Risk in Equity Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(1), pages 1-42.
    21. Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 421-436, June.
    22. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    23. Chan, Louis K C & Lakonishok, Josef, 1995. "The Behavior of Stock Prices around Institutional Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1147-1174, September.
    24. Kumar, Alok & Page, Jeremy K. & Spalt, Oliver G., 2011. "Religious beliefs, gambling attitudes, and financial market outcomes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 671-708.
    25. LeRoy, Stephen F & Porter, Richard D, 1981. "The Present-Value Relation: Tests Based on Implied Variance Bounds," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(3), pages 555-574, May.
    26. Gallant, A Ronald & Rossi, Peter E & Tauchen, George, 1992. "Stock Prices and Volume," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(2), pages 199-242.
    27. Blau, Benjamin M. & Bowles, T. Boone & Whitby, Ryan J., 2016. "Gambling Preferences, Options Markets, and Volatility," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 515-540, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baig, Ahmed S. & Blau, Benjamin M. & Butt, Hassan A. & Yasin, Awaid, 2023. "Reprint of: Do retail traders destabilize financial markets? An investigation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    2. Baig, Ahmed S. & Blau, Benjamin M. & Butt, Hassan A. & Yasin, Awaid, 2022. "Do retail traders destabilize financial markets? An investigation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Lina Mao & Chongluan Lu & Guangfan Sun & Chunyan Zhang & Changwei Guo, 2024. "Regional culture and corporate finance: a literature review," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    4. Bin Li & Honglei Li & Guangfan Sun & Jiayi Tao & Chongluan Lu & Changwei Guo, 2024. "Speculative culture and corporate high-quality development in China: mediating effect of corporate innovation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Aharon, David Y. & Baig, Ahmed S. & Jacoby, Gady & Wu, Zhenyu, 2024. "Greenhouse gas emissions and the stability of equity markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blau, Benjamin M., 2018. "Exchange rate volatility and the stability of stock prices," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 299-311.
    2. Blau, Benjamin M. & Brough, Tyler J. & Thomas, Diana W., 2014. "Economic freedom and the stability of stock prices: A cross-country analysis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 182-196.
    3. Tim Bollerslev & Robert J. Hodrick, 1992. "Financial Market Efficiency Tests," NBER Working Papers 4108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Gilbert Colletaz, 1987. "Les taux d'intérêt observés sur le marché monétaire sont-ils trop volatils ?," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 38(4), pages 837-852.
    5. Chuang, Wen-I & Lee, Bong-Soo, 2006. "An empirical evaluation of the overconfidence hypothesis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 2489-2515, September.
    6. Flood, Robert P & Hodrick, Robert J, 1986. "Asset Price Volatility, Bubbles, and Process Switching," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(4), pages 831-842, September.
    7. Shively, Philip A., 2007. "Asymmetric temporary and permanent stock-price innovations," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 120-130, January.
    8. Marcus Alexander Ong, 2015. "An information theoretic analysis of stock returns, volatility and trading volumes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(36), pages 3891-3906, August.
    9. Michaelides, Panayotis G. & Tsionas, Efthymios G. & Konstantakis, Konstantinos N., 2016. "Non-linearities in financial bubbles: Theory and Bayesian evidence from S&P500," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 61-70.
    10. Shi, Leilei & Wang, Binghong & Guo, Xinshuai & Li, Honggang, 2021. "A price dynamic equilibrium model with trading volume weights based on a price-volume probability wave differential equation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Franklin Allen & Gary B. Gorton, "undated". "Rational Finite Bubbles," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 41-88, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    12. Refet S. Gürkaynak, 2008. "Econometric Tests Of Asset Price Bubbles: Taking Stock," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 166-186, February.
    13. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    14. Gary S. Shea, 1985. "Long memory models of interest rates, the term structure, and variance bounds tests," International Finance Discussion Papers 258, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Cochrane, John H., 2005. "Financial Markets and the Real Economy," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 1-101, July.
    16. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    17. Štefan Lyócsa & Roman Horváth, 2018. "Stock Market Contagion: a New Approach," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 547-577, July.
    18. Ólan T. Henry & Michael McKenzie, 2006. "The Impact of Short Selling on the Price-Volume Relationship: Evidence from Hong Kong," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(2), pages 671-692, March.
    19. Benjamin M. Blau, 2017. "Religiosity and the Volatility of Stock Prices: A Cross-Country Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 609-621, September.
    20. Thanh Huong Nguyen, 2019. "Information and Noise in Stock Markets: Evidence on the Determinants and Effects Using New Empirical Measures," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 7-2019, January-A.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gambling; Stock markets; Volatility; American Depositary Receipts; Behavioral finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G40 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - General
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:27:y:2020:i:c:s2214635019302965. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-finance .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.