Meme Stocks

Crypto assets and social media are changing how finance operates. Uncertainty around the future of AI is affecting financial markets. Claudia Biancotti argues that regulators must expand their range of expertise and pursue a multidisciplinary approach to protecting society against the potential negative spillovers from these developments.

Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.