Paola Sapienza Associate Professor of Finance Zell Center Faculty Fellow Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University 2001 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 Office: (847) 491-7436 Fax: (847) 491-5719 E-mail: Paola-Sapienza@northwestern.edu

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Papers

Long Term Persistence
(with Luigi Guiso and Luigi Zingales)
September 2007

ABSTRACT:   Is social capital long lasting? Does it affect long term economic performance? To answer these questions we test Putnam’s conjecture that today marked differences in social capital between the North and South of Italy are due to the culture of independence fostered by the free city states experience in the North of Italy at the turn of the first millennium. We show that the medieval experience of independence has an impact on social capital within the North, even when we instrument for the probability of becoming a city state with historical factors (such as the Etruscan origin of the city and the presence of a bishop in year 1,000). More importantly, we show that the difference in social capital between towns that in the Middle Ages had the characteristics to become independent and towns that did not exists only in the North (where most of these towns did become independent) and not in the South (where the power of the Norman kingdom prevented them from doing so). Our difference in difference estimates suggest that at least 50% of the North-South gap in social capital is due to the lack of a free city state experience in the South.  

Procrastination and Impatience
(with Ernesto Reuben and Luigi Zingales)
November 2007

ABSTRACT:   There is a large body of literature documenting both a preference for immediacy and a tendency to procrastinate. O'Donoghue and Rabin (1999a,b, 2001) and Choi et al. (2005) model these behaviors as the two faces of the same phenomenon. In this paper, we use a combination of lab, field, and survey evidence to study whether these two types of behavior are indeed linked. To measure immediacy we had subjects choose between a series of smaller-sooner and larger-later rewards. Both rewards were paid with a check in order to control for transaction costs. To measure procrastination we use the subjects' actual behavior in cashing the check and completing tasks on time. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that subjects who have a preference for immediacy are indeed more likely to procrastinate.  

Understanding Trust
(with Anna Toldra and Luigi Zingales)
August 2007

ABSTRACT:   Several papers study the effect of trust by using the answer to the World Values Survey (WVS) question "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?" to measure the level of trust. Glaeser et al. (2000) question the validity of this measure by showing that it is not correlated with senders’ behavior in the standard trust game, but only with his trustworthiness. By using a large sample of German households, Fehr et al. (2003) find the opposite result: WVS-like measures of trust are correlated with the sender’s behavior, but not with its trustworthiness. In this paper we resolve this puzzle by recognizing that trust has two components: a belief-based one and a preference based one. While the sender behavior’s reflects both, we show that WVS-like measures capture mostly the belief-based component, while questions on past trusting behavior are better at capturing the preference component of trust.  

Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?
(with Luigi Guiso and Luigi Zingales)
June 2007

ABSTRACT:   How much do cultural biases affect economic exchange? We try to answer this question by using the relative trust European citizens have for citizens of other countries. First, we document that this trust is affected not only by objective characteristics of the country being trusted, but also by cultural aspects of the match between trusting country and trusted country, such as religion, history of conflicts, and genetic and somatic similarities. We then find that lower relative levels of trust toward citizens of a country lead to less trade with that country, less portfolio investment, and less direct investment in that country, even after controlling for the objective characteristics of that country. This effect is stronger for goods that are more trust intensive and doubles or triples when trust is instrumented with its cultural determinants. Our results suggest that perceptions rooted in culture are important (and generally omitted) determinants of economic exchange.  

A Lobbying Approach to Evaluating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
(with Yael Hochberg and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen) 
January 2007

ABSTRACT:  We evaluate the net benefits of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) for shareholders by studying the lobbying behavior of investors and corporate insiders to affect the final implemented rules under the Act. Investors lobbied overwhelmingly in favor of strict implementation of SOX, while corporate insiders and business groups lobbied against strict implementation. We identify the firms most affected by the law as those whose insiders lobbied against strict implementation, and compare their returns to the returns of less affected firms. Cumulative returns during the four and a half months leading up to passage of SOX were approximately 10 percent higher for corporations whose insiders lobbied against one or more of the SOX disclosure-related provisions than for similar non-lobbying firms. Analysis of returns in the post-passage implementation period indicates that investors’ positive expectations with regards to the effects of the law were warranted for the enhanced disclosure provisions of SOX.  

What Do Independent Directors Know? Evidence from Their Trading
(with Enrichetta Ravina) 
December 2006

ABSTRACT:  We compare the trading performance of independent directors and other officers of the firm. We find that independent directors earn positive and substantial abnormal returns when they purchase their company stock, and that the difference with the same firm's officers is relatively small at most horizons. The results are robust to controlling for firm fixed effects and to using a variety of alternative specifications. Executive officers and independent directors make higher returns in firms with weaker governance and the gap between these two groups widens in such firms. Independent directors who sit in audit committees earn higher return than other independent directors at the same firm. Finally, independent directors earn significantly higher returns than the market when they sell the company stock in a window before bad news and around a restatement announcement.  

The Cost of Banking Regulation
(with Luigi Guiso and Luigi Zingales) 
February 2007

ABSTRACT:  We use exogenous variation in the degree of restrictions to bank competition across Italian provinces to study both the effects of bank regulation and the impact of deregulation. We find that where entry was more restricted the cost of credit was higher and - contrary to expectations- access to credit lower. The only benefit of these restrictions was a lower proportion of bad loans. Liberalization brings a reduction in rate spreads and an increased access to credit at the cost of an increase in bad loans. In provinces where restrictions to bank competition were most severe, the proportion of bad loans after deregulation raises above the level present in more competitive markets, suggesting that the pre-existing conditions severely impact the effect of liberalizations.  

Social Capital as Good Culture
(with Luigi Guiso and Luigi Zingales)
December 2007
Forthcoming The Journal of the European Economic Association

ABSTRACT:   To explain the extremely long-term persistence (more than 500 years) of positive historical experiences of cooperation (Putnam 1993), we model the intergenerational transmission of priors about the trustworthiness of others. We show that this transmission tends to be biased toward excessively conservative priors. As a result, societies can be trapped in a low-trust equilibrium. In this context, a temporary shock to the return to trusting can have a permanent effect on the level of trust. We validate the model by testing its predictions on the World Values Survey data and the German Socio Economic Panel. We also present some anecdotal evidence that these priors are reflected in novels that originate in different parts of the country.  

Trusting the Stock Market
(with Luigi Guiso and Luigi Zingales)
July 2007
Forthcoming The Journal of Finance

ABSTRACT:   We study the effect that a general lack of trust can have on stock market participation. In deciding whether to buy stocks, investors factor in the risk of being cheated. The perception of this risk is a function not only of the objective characteristics of the stocks, but also of the subjective characteristics of the investor. Less trusting individuals are less likely to buy stock and, conditional on buying stock, they will buy less. We find evidence consistent with these propositions in Dutch and Italian micro data, as well as in cross country data. All the evidence suggests that lack of trust could be an important factor in explaining the limited participation puzzle, especially among more wealthy investors.  

The Stock Market and Corporate Investment:
a Test of Catering Theory
(with Christopher Polk) 
December 2006
Forthcoming The Review of Financial Studies
This paper previously circulated with the title
"The Real Effects of Investor Sentiment"