We document a surge in gambling demand surrounding the Lunar New Year (LNY) period in the Chinese A-share market. Lottery-like stocks significantly outperform non-lottery-like stocks by 4.1% over the ten trading days following the LNY. These gains gradually diminish over the longer term, consistent with a short-term mispricing effect. This effect is specific to the LNY window and is not observed during other major Chinese holidays or ordinary trading periods. Furthermore, the phenomenon is not driven by state-owned enterprises or Special Treatment (ST) stocks. Overall, our findings suggest that the cultural significance of the Chinese Lunar New Year plays a distinct role in shaping investor gambling demand and asset pricing dynamics.

Financial institutions around the world are aware of customers' ambitions to conduct their financial activities in accordance with their values. In response, they are entering the impact-economy field. (Ramazanova at el 2022). Israeli banking today does not operate according to Jewish law, since there is a bypass called "Heter Iska", which allows one to have unlimited banking activity. We used a quantitative model to estimate the expected economic value of a new banking track tailored for religious Jews who want to avoid religiously prohibited usury in a manner more compatible with Jewish law. Our survey revealed that, on average, employees would be willing to forgo 16% of their salary for the benefit of working for a bank that offered such products and that customers would be willing to pay 80% higher management fees for such products. These findings suggest that such products could be commercially viable. This work falls into two topical areas covered by this journal: Religion and Attitudes (specifically, corporate behavior) and Religious Practices (specifically, economic behavior of individuals and groups of individuals).

Most defined contribution retirement income systems assume that retiring participants have the know-how and confidence to turn their lump sum savings into life-long income. Surprisingly slow withdrawals by retired defined contribution participants cast doubt on this assumption. In this study, we conduct three rounds of lab-in-the-field experiments that give near-to-retirement defined contribution plan participants updating information about withdrawal plans. We show that income projections induce slightly higher rates of withdrawal but this influence is dominated by income anchors. Supporting participants with basic information and the opportunity to engage in the decision process through interactive education tools has the potential to improve their wellbeing in retirement.