IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v219y2024ics0022053124000528.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Short-covering bubbles

Author

Listed:
  • Guimaraes, Bernardo
  • Pannella, Pierluca

Abstract

This paper argues that short selling might give rise to bubbles that would otherwise not exist. An asset with zero fundamental value might be traded at a positive price by rational agents. We call it a short-covering bubble because it is sustained by short-sellers covering their positions. Agents trade according to their beliefs on how long the bubble will persist.

Suggested Citation

  • Guimaraes, Bernardo & Pannella, Pierluca, 2024. "Short-covering bubbles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:219:y:2024:i:c:s0022053124000528
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2024.105846
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053124000528
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2024.105846?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dimitri Vayanos & Pierre‐Olivier Weill, 2008. "A Search‐Based Theory of the On‐the‐Run Phenomenon," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1361-1398, June.
    2. Kocherlakota, Narayana, 2008. "Injecting rational bubbles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 218-232, September.
    3. Jonathan M. Karpoff & Xiaoxia Lou, 2010. "Short Sellers and Financial Misconduct," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1879-1913, October.
    4. Jianjun Miao & Pengfei Wang, 2018. "Asset Bubbles and Credit Constraints," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2590-2628, September.
    5. 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.
    6. Dilip Abreu & Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2003. "Bubbles and Crashes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 173-204, January.
    7. Wei Xiong, 2013. "Bubbles, Crises, and Heterogeneous Beliefs," NBER Working Papers 18905, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2018. "The Macroeconomics of Rational Bubbles: A User's Guide," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 505-539, August.
    9. Tomohiro Hirano & Noriyuki Yanagawa, 2017. "Asset Bubbles, Endogenous Growth, and Financial Frictions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 406-443.
    10. Manuel S. Santos & Michael Woodford, 1997. "Rational Asset Pricing Bubbles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(1), pages 19-58, January.
    11. Christian Hellwig & Guido Lorenzoni, 2009. "Bubbles and Self-Enforcing Debt," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1137-1164, July.
    12. Bewley, Truman, 1983. "A Difficulty with the Optimum Quantity of Money," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1485-1504, September.
    13. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2012. "Economic Growth with Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 3033-3058, October.
    14. Han, Bing & Kumar, Alok, 2013. "Speculative Retail Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 377-404, April.
    15. Gilles Saint-Paul, 1992. "Fiscal Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1243-1259.
    16. Duffie, Darrell & Garleanu, Nicolae & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2002. "Securities lending, shorting, and pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 307-339.
    17. Antonio Doblas‐Madrid, 2012. "A Robust Model of Bubbles With Multidimensional Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(5), pages 1845-1893, September.
    18. Raddatz, Claudio & Schmukler, Sergio L. & Williams, Tomás, 2017. "International asset allocations and capital flows: The benchmark effect," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 413-430.
    19. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    20. Stephen Morris, 1996. "Speculative Investor Behavior and Learning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1111-1133.
    21. Kocherlakota, Narayana R., 1992. "Bubbles and constraints on debt accumulation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 245-256.
    22. Chague, Fernando & De-Losso, Rodrigo & Giovannetti, Bruno, 2019. "The short-selling skill of institutions and individuals," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 77-91.
    23. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2009. "Sensation Seeking, Overconfidence, and Trading Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 549-578, April.
    24. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Martin Oehmke, 2014. "Predatory Short Selling," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2153-2195.
    25. Yongqiang Chu & David Hirshleifer & Liang Ma, 2020. "The Causal Effect of Limits to Arbitrage on Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2631-2672, October.
    26. Chague, Fernando & De-Losso, Rodrigo & De Genaro, Alan & Giovannetti, Bruno, 2014. "Short-sellers: Informed but restricted," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 56-70.
    27. Miao, Jianjun & Wang, Pengfei, 2014. "Sectoral bubbles, misallocation, and endogenous growth," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 153-163.
    28. Pedro A. C. Saffi & Kari Sigurdsson, 2011. "Price Efficiency and Short Selling," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(3), pages 821-852.
    29. Boehmer, Ekkehart & Duong, Truong X. & Huszár, Zsuzsa R., 2018. "Short Covering Trades," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(2), pages 723-748, April.
    30. Miao, Jianjun, 2014. "Introduction to economic theory of bubbles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 130-136.
    31. Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2022. "Game on: Social networks and markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1097-1119.
    32. Grossman, Gene M. & Yanagawa, Noriyuki, 1993. "Asset bubbles and endogenous growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 3-19, February.
    33. Tirole, Jean, 1985. "Asset Bubbles and Overlapping Generations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1499-1528, November.
    34. Basco, Sergi, 2016. "Switching bubbles: From Outside to Inside Bubbles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 236-255.
    35. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Public Debt as Private Liquidity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 382-388, May.
    36. King, Ian & Ferguson, Don, 1993. "Dynamic inefficiency, endogenous growth, and Ponzi games," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 79-104, August.
    37. Kenechukwu Anadu & Mathias Kruttli & Patrick McCabe & Emilio Osambela, 2020. "The Shift from Active to Passive Investing: Risks to Financial Stability?," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(4), pages 23-39, October.
    38. Victor Filipe Martins da Rocha & Toan Phan & Yiannis Vailakis, 2019. "Debt Limits and Credit Bubbles in General Equilibrium," Post-Print hal-02429759, HAL.
    39. Franklin Allen & Lubomir Litov & Jianping Mei, 2006. "Large Investors, Price Manipulation, and Limits to Arbitrage: An Anatomy of Market Corners," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 10(4), pages 645-693, December.
    40. Hong, Harrison & Kubik, Jeffrey D. & Fishman, Tal, 2012. "Do arbitrageurs amplify economic shocks?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 454-470.
    41. Richard Evans & Miguel A. Ferreira & Melissa Porras Prado, 2017. "Fund Performance and Equity Lending: Why Lend What You Can Sell?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(3), pages 1093-1121.
    42. Alok Kumar, 2009. "Who Gambles in the Stock Market?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1889-1933, August.
    43. Hemang Desai & K. Ramesh & S. Ramu Thiagarajan & Bala V. Balachandran, 2002. "An Investigation of the Informational Role of Short Interest in the Nasdaq Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2263-2287, October.
    44. Allen, Franklin & Haas, Marlene D. & Nowak, Eric & Tengulov, Angel, 2021. "Market efficiency and limits to arbitrage: Evidence from the Volkswagen short squeeze," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 166-194.
    45. Diamond, Douglas W. & Verrecchia, Robert E., 1987. "Constraints on short-selling and asset price adjustment to private information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 277-311, June.
    46. Anne Jones Dorn & Daniel Dorn & Paul Sengmueller, 2015. "Trading as Gambling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2376-2393, October.
    47. Itay Goldstein & Alexander Guembel, 2008. "Manipulation and the Allocational Role of Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(1), pages 133-164.
    48. Massimo Massa & Bohui Zhang & Hong Zhang, 2015. "The Invisible Hand of Short Selling: Does Short Selling Discipline Earnings Management?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(6), pages 1701-1736.
    49. Brad M. Barber & Yi-Tsung Lee & Yu-Jane Liu & Terrance Odean, 2009. "Just How Much Do Individual Investors Lose by Trading?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 609-632, February.
    50. J. Michael Harrison & David M. Kreps, 1978. "Speculative Investor Behavior in a Stock Market with Heterogeneous Expectations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(2), pages 323-336.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bidian, Florin, 2015. "Portfolio constraints, differences in beliefs and bubbles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 317-326.
    2. Hirano, Tomohiro & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2024. "Bubble economics," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    3. Michau, Jean-Baptiste & Ono, Yoshiyasu & Schlegl, Matthias, 2023. "Wealth preference and rational bubbles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    4. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2018. "The Macroeconomics of Rational Bubbles: A User's Guide," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 505-539, August.
    5. Jia Pengfei & Lim King Yoong, 2021. "Tax Policy and Toxic Housing Bubbles in China," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 151-183, January.
    6. Miao, Jianjun, 2014. "Introduction to economic theory of bubbles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 130-136.
    7. Bernardo Guimaraes & Pierluca Pannella, 2021. "Short-squeeze bubbles," Discussion Papers 2109, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    8. Bidian, Florin, 2016. "Robust bubbles with mild penalties for default," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 141-153.
    9. Giglio, Stefano & Severo, Tiago, 2012. "Intangible capital, relative asset shortages and bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 303-317.
    10. Siddhartha Biswas & Andrew Hanson & Toan Phan, 2020. "Bubbly Recessions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 33-70, October.
    11. Graczyk, Andrew & Phan, Toan, 2021. "Regressive Welfare Effects Of Housing Bubbles," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(8), pages 2102-2127, December.
    12. Bosi, Stefano & Le Van, Cuong & Pham, Ngoc-Sang, 2022. "Real indeterminacy and dynamics of asset price bubbles in general equilibrium," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    13. Hori, Takeo & Im, Ryonghun, 2023. "Asset bubbles, entrepreneurial risks, and economic growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    14. Miao, Jianjun & Wang, Pengfei, 2014. "Sectoral bubbles, misallocation, and endogenous growth," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 153-163.
    15. Bo Zhao, 2015. "Rational housing bubble," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(1), pages 141-201, September.
    16. Nezafat, Mahdi & Schroder, Mark & Wang, Qinghai, 2017. "Short-sale constraints, information acquisition, and asset prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 273-312.
    17. Hirano, Tomohiro & Yanagawa, Noriyuki, 2010. "Asset Bubbles, Endogenous Growth, and Financial Frictions," MPRA Paper 24085, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-02993656 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Dong, Feng & Jia, Yandong & Wang, Siqing, 2022. "Speculative Bubbles and Talent Misallocation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. Lise Clain‐Chamosset‐Yvrard & Xavier Raurich & Thomas Seegmuller, 2023. "Are the Liquidity and Collateral Roles of Asset Bubbles Different?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(6), pages 1443-1473, September.
    21. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Short-selling; Short-squeeze; Equity lending; Overpricing; GameStop; Meme stocks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    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:jetheo:v:219:y:2024:i:c:s0022053124000528. 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: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    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.