Thesis advisor: Zhijie Xiao / This dissertation covers three essays in the realm of investor heterogeneity. Traditional financial economics theories assume that agents are identical. However, daily practice of finance exhibits phenomena that cannot be explained in the context of homogeneous agents. Thus behavioral economists relax the agent homogeneity assumption and allow different types of agents to interplay, which can explain a series of phenomena, including bubbles (Scheinkman and Xiong, 2003,etc), among others. The first chapter of this dissertation answers the question: what kind of investors flock to an IPO--mostly sophisticated or mostly naive? The answer to this question points to explaining the puzzlingly extreme trading volume on the first day after an IPO. Existing explanations rely on institutions such as day trading, short selling and inter-dealer trades, yet IPO frenzies are common even when these are entirely absent. Recent evidence points to the possible importance of sentiment from retail investors, but it is not yet clear what kind of retail investors might be harboring these emotions. I access a unique data set for Chinese IPOs that measures investor experience and trading records. I find that inexperienced investors are initially drawn to the IPO while established investors remain on the sidelines. Over time, investor composition shifts in favor of experienced investors. More importantly, I identify market timing of purchase (together with the timing of selling, the purchase price, etc, which I define as the decision bundle) as the predominant channel for determining heterogeneity in returns for experienced versus for inexperienced investors. Furthermore, I find that investors do learn to be more patient and get better investment performance thereof. Also, I am able to depict the learning curve by documenting that the marginal effect of learning varies across the level of stock of experience, and across heterogeneous investor type. The second chapter examines the effect of short selling via the unique setting in the Hong Kong stock market and find that, when a stock becomes shortable, its trading activities decrease, liquidities worsen, and information asymmetries increase. This finding contradicts both the existing theoretical models, and recent empirical studies using global financial crisis data. We extend the sequential trading model with short-sales constraints of one asset by Diamond and Verrecchia (1987) to the case of multiple assets. The model predicts that our empirical results are due to uninformed traders switching their tradings to non-shortable securities. Chapter 3 uses a unique short selling setting in Hong Kong stock market, and tests the Chen and Singal (2003) hypothesis that speculative short sellers add to the selling pressure on Mondays and hence add to the weekend effect. We document that, first, the weekend effect exists in Hong Kong stock market, regardless of the existence of short sale constraints; second, after introducing short selling, the individual stocks face more significant weekend effect. The reported result is robust over different estimation models, and over different choices of control groups. Our findings strongly support the Chen and Singal (2003) hypothesis. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

<p>The Swedish population has the world’s largest percentage of shareholders either by direct or indirect owning. Due to the increasing interest of equity capital markets, private as well as institutional investors rely on forecasts from financial analysts. The reason for this is due to the lack of expertise among investors in this area. </p><p>Due to the fact that analysts influence the Swedish stock market immensely, it’s of great interest to explore whether an analyst can be seen as a rational participant. At the same time, we would like to see what impact psychological factors have on the analysts in their work and which these psychological factors are.</p><p>To battle these questions, we have chosen to take a qualitative approach in our research, basing it on interviews. In our opinion, interviewing a person gives a more balanced picture as the respondents have the possibility to have a dialog/discussion with the interviewer. The selection of interviewees was not random, instead we chose to interview nine different financial analysts working for big popular firms in Stockholm and Copenhagen. </p><p>Our research presents the psychological factors which affect financial analysts. We are convinced to have found strong enough indications to draw general conclusions for financial analysts, active on the Nordic stock market. </p><p>The study has shown a given relation between experience and psychological effects. The awareness of the psychological impact on the stock market exists among all financial analysts. But we have found that it’s more likely for an inexperienced financial analyst to be affected by these. The factors that have the largest effect on analysts are mostly trends, herding, overreaction and noise. </p><p>Finally our research shows a psychological position of dependence for the companies the analyst value. These are the providers of information for analysts, in practice a sale recommendation can lead to less information being shared with him or her. Further on, it’s generally seen to be more commercial correct publishing a buy recommendation as these generate more incomes and business connection for the analyst’s employer. The conclusions points out that an analyst often adopts over-optimism when analysing companies.</p>

The Swedish population has the world’s largest percentage of shareholders either by direct or indirect owning. Due to the increasing interest of equity capital markets, private as well as institutional investors rely on forecasts from financial analysts. The reason for this is due to the lack of expertise among investors in this area. Due to the fact that analysts influence the Swedish stock market immensely, it’s of great interest to explore whether an analyst can be seen as a rational participant. At the same time, we would like to see what impact psychological factors have on the analysts in their work and which these psychological factors are. To battle these questions, we have chosen to take a qualitative approach in our research, basing it on interviews. In our opinion, interviewing a person gives a more balanced picture as the respondents have the possibility to have a dialog/discussion with the interviewer. The selection of interviewees was not random, instead we chose to interview nine different financial analysts working for big popular firms in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Our research presents the psychological factors which affect financial analysts. We are convinced to have found strong enough indications to draw general conclusions for financial analysts, active on the Nordic stock market. The study has shown a given relation between experience and psychological effects. The awareness of the psychological impact on the stock market exists among all financial analysts. But we have found that it’s more likely for an inexperienced financial analyst to be affected by these. The factors that have the largest effect on analysts are mostly trends, herding, overreaction and noise. Finally our research shows a psychological position of dependence for the companies the analyst value. These are the providers of information for analysts, in practice a sale recommendation can lead to less information being shared with him or her. Further on, it’s generally seen to be more commercial correct publishing a buy recommendation as these generate more incomes and business connection for the analyst’s employer. The conclusions points out that an analyst often adopts over-optimism when analysing companies.

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This thesis examines topics in corporate finance and behavioral finance. First, I examine the effects of ownership structure on the amount of firm-specific information in stock prices, measured using synchronicity. With a unique dataset of 6,184 firm-year observations for Canadian companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange during 2000-2012, I find evidence of a significant, non-linear relationship between the size of the largest shareholder and synchronicity. Using propensity score matching (PSM) to isolate the effect of family firms on synchronicity, I find no evidence of a significant difference in synchronicity for matched pairs of family and non-family firms. Finally, I find evidence of a negative relationship between firms with multiple large controlling shareholders and synchronicity. Second, in a co-authored paper with Dr. Richard Deaves (McMaster University) and Dr. Brian Kluger (University of Cincinnati) we investigate the relationship between path-dependent behaviors (i.e., the disposition effect, house money effect and break-even effect) and investor characteristics (e.g., overconfidence and emotional stability) using experimental trading sessions. The majority of our subjects exhibit path-dependent biases and there are significant correlations between these biases. The correlations hint at the possibility that a common underlying factor may be driving all path-dependent behaviors. We also find some evidence that the existence of psychological bias (overconfidence and negative affect) leads to more bias in financial decision-making. Third, in co-authored work with Dr. Lucy Ackert (Kennesaw State University), Dr. Richard Deaves (McMaster University) and Dr. Quang Nguyen (Middlesex University) we report the results of an experiment designed to explore whether both cognitive ability (IQ) and emotional stability (EQ) impact risk preference and time preference in financial decision-making, finding evidence in support. Specifically, IQ impacts risk preferences and EQ impacts time preferences. Our results are primarily driven by our male participants. Most interestingly, EQ plays a role that is almost as meaningful as IQ when it comes to explaining preferences. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

Civilekonomuppsats i företagsekonomi, Ekonomihögskolan vid Linnéuniversitet, 2011 Författare: Rasmus Wallgren &amp; Pär Ericson Handledare : Christopher Von Koch Examinator : Sven-Olof Yrjö Collin Titel : En studie i rationalitet Bakgrund och problem : Den senaste finansiella krisen ledde till ökad granskning och kritik mot Efficient Market Hypothesis och tron på rationella förväntningar och effektiva marknader. Behavioral finance uppkom som ett försök att förklara varför de traditionella synsätten inte alltid tycks förklara marknadsaktörers beteende och ifrågasätter synsättet om att marknadens aktörer agerar rationellt. Vår studie bidrar med en jämförelse mellan privatpersoner och fondförvaltare i deras rationalitet. Detta är intressant eftersom många privatpersoner väljer att spara i fonder och ställer därmed sina besparingar till fondförvaltarnas förfogande. Syfte : Att undersöka huruvida det finns skillnader mellan privata aktiesparare och fondförvaltare i deras rationalitet vid beslutsfattande. Metod : Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ undersökningsmetod, där den huvudsakliga empirin samlades in via webenkäter. Som komplement till enkäten har vi även använt oss av statistik över privatpersoners fondsparande och över Sverigefonders betavärden. Slutsatser : Studiens resultat tyder på att den erfarenhet och ekonomiska utbildning som fondförvaltarna har gör dem mindre benägna att förenkla sitt beslutsfattande genom att ta efter andra eller att använda olika tumregler och har därmed enklare att fatta rationella beslut. Det finns även tydliga skillnader grupperna emellan gällande förlustaversion och att privatpersoner viktar förluster mycket tyngre än vinster, medan fondförvaltarna är mer neutrala i den aspekten. / Master Thesis in Business Administration, School of Business and Economics at the Linneaus University, 2012 Authors : Rasmus Wallgren &amp; Pär Ericson Supervisor : Christopher Von Koch Examiner : Sven-Olof Yrjö Collin Title : A study in rationality. Background and problem : The recent financial crisis led to an increased scrutinizing and criticism towards Efficient Market Hypothesis and the belief in rational expectations and efficient markets. Behavioral finance emerged as a response as to why the traditional views doesn’t always seem to explain the market and questions the belief that the market’s actors are rational in their decisions. Our study provides a comparison of the rationality of private investors and mutual fund managers, which is interesting since many people trust mutual fund managers to handle their money by investing in a mutual fund. Purpose : To research if there are differences in rationality between private investors and mutual fund managers. Method : This study is based on a quantitative research method, where most of the empirical data was gathered from a web-based questionnaire. As a complement to the questionnaires we have also used statistics of private investors’ savings in mutual funds and also of funds historical beta values. Conclusions : The papers results suggest that the experience and financial education that fund managers have are making them less likely to simplify their decision making by emulating others or using different heuristics and therefore have an easier time making rational decisions. There are also clear differences between the two groups regarding loss aversion and it is clear that private investors weighs losses much heavier than gains, while fund managers are more neutral in that aspect.

Prior research on corporations finds that there exists a large unexplained firm-specific heterogeneity in corporate behaviors stemming from the effects of managers. This research identifies managerial personalities and tests their effects on corporate behaviors both experimentally and empirically. First, the effects of managerial personalities on corporate financing decisions are tested using a laboratory experiment with managers in South Korea. The laboratory experimental market is à la Modigliani and Miller but with two frictions, bankruptcy costs and corporate taxation. Leverage choices of managers with particular personality traits are compared against the optimal capital structure computed from the static trade-off theory. The results show that extravert managers choose higher leverage ratios, with the effect being financially meaningful although not statistically significant. Secondly, I identify extravert CEOs and empirically measure its effects on corporate financing choices using Chief Executive Officers’ avocation data and corporate financial data of public, nonfinancial US companies between 1992 and 2011. The results of mean comparisons by group, fixed effects regressions, difference-in-difference regressions, and changes of leverages around CEO turnovers show that extravert CEOs tend to issue risky debt more when accessing external finance and maintain higher leverage ratios than their peers. Thirdly, I test the effects of managerial extraversion on executive compensation. I first offer an empirical compensation model of managerial bargaining power, and then empirically tests the prediction by identifying a personality trait relevant to bargaining power using a novel set of managerial hobbies data. The results provide an evidence that CEO bargaining power has an increasing effect on CEO compensation.

效率市場一直是傳統財務理論的核心，然而現實的投資環境中卻一再發現傳統財務學無法解釋的不效率現象，例如小公司效應（small firm effect）、本益比效應（price/earnings effect）、面值市值比效應（book value/market value effect）、元月效應（January effect）、週末效應（weekend effect）等。行為財務學認為投資人的行為偏誤是造成市場不效率的原因之一，而這些偏誤是會一再重複而有機可循的，因此發展出動能策略（momentum strategy）、反向策略（contrarian strategy）等，藉由研究投資人的行為對股票市場進行預測並投資。 台灣市場一直是散戶居多，而且又是屬於淺碟型的小市場，理論上投資人的行為偏誤將會更加顯著，也意味著行為財務學將有更多的發展空間，雖然行為財務學的理論已經被廣泛的實證研究，但是因為投資人的行為往往會因為不同地域、不同情境、不同時空等因素而有所差別，鑒於目前台灣市場尚未有相關的投資方式，因此希望藉由本研究促進國內產學界更深入探討行為財務學在投資方面的應用，進而促使台灣投資市場的更加效率。 / Efficient market has been the core of traditional financial theory. However, in real world, unexplainable phenomenon of inefficiency has been discovered, e.g., small firm effect, price/earnings effect, book value/market value effect, January effect, weekend effect, etc. According to behavioral finance, investors’ behavior biases are one of the main causes, and these biases will repeat themselves. Therefore, momentum strategy and contrarian strategy are performed in investment to try to forecast the market. Taiwan stock market is small and has been full of undisciplined individual investors. Theoretically, investors’ behavior biases are more easily to find, which means behavioral finance should apply better in Taiwan. Although the theory of behavioral finance has been widely testified, the outcomes are always different from areas, scenarios, times etc. Considered that, behavioral finance has not been applied in Taiwan stock market. This study focuses on application of behavioral finance in Taiwan. Hope that through this study to promote domestic industry and academy to deeply explore the application of behavioral finance in investment, thereby promoting more efficiency of the investment market in Taiwan.

<p>It is easy to see that oil has a big part in our economy, by looking at the repeated news from the media and at the stock market, where they follow the oil price very closely. Behavioral finance is about investors making small or big mistakes in the stock market. Behavioral finance describes the importance of understanding your own faults, as well as others investor’s faults. Behavioral finance emphases the importance of not assuming that the financial market is a flawless environment, but to understand the psychology behind investment decisions. The essays purpose is to explain how the oil price effect investment decisions in the stock markets in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. I have chosen to use regression analysis to statistically see how the oil price is affecting the stock price for 11 stocks in the three different countries. The result shows that the oil price affects all the oil company’s stock prices and three other stock prices. The result also shows that the oil price is affecting the number of bought stocks for all the company’s in the essay. The conclusion is that the oil price has a positive effect on the trade in the stock market. If the oil price increases, then the number of bought stocks increases too. It is interesting to see that the numbers of bought stocks do not only increase for the oil companies, but also for the companies whose stock price is not affected by the oil price. To explain this behavior I have chosen to use the Behavioral finance theory.</p>