We conducted experiments on norm focusing. The tests were carried out with two versions of dictator games: in one version of the game, the dictator had to allocate a gain of e10, while in the other version, a loss of e−10 needs to be allocated. In a first treatment, we focused subjects on the average giving in similar previous dictator games. The second treatment focused subjects on the behaviour of what a self-interested actor should do. In total, N = 550 participants took part in our experiments. We found (1) a significant difference in giving behaviour between gain and loss treatments, with subjects being moderately more self-interested in the loss domain, (2) a significant effect of focusing subjects on the average behaviour of others, but (3) no effect of focusing subjects on the behaviour of self-interested actors.

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The dissertation consists of two essays. The first essay investigates the ability of prior returns, relative to some aggregate market returns, to predict future returns on industry style portfolios. By pooling time series of returns across industries for the period between July 1969 and June 2012, we find that prior returns differential predicts one month ahead returns negatively, even in the presence of a set of popular state variables. The predictability remains significant and negative for up to 5 month ahead returns. The predictability is shown to be robust to alternative specifications, estimation methodology and industry classifications. A possible explanation of this finding is based on time–varying (dynamic) loss aversion among investors. More specifically, when combined with house money effects, prior performance has inverse relationship with degree of loss aversion leading to predictability in the next period returns. The second essay examines the nature of time variation in the risk exposure of country mutual funds to the US market movement and to the benchmark foreign market movement. It uses weekly data on 15 closed end funds and 19 exchange traded funds for the sample period between January, 2001 and December, 2012. Conditional factor models are employed to uncover the time variation in the estimated betas through short horizon regressions. The findings of the paper indicate considerable time variation in risk exposure of country mutual funds to the US market and foreign market risk factors. Additional investigation reveals the following observations. First, the US market betas suffer greater variation over the sample period than the target foreign market betas. Second, the overall fluctuation in betas for the closed end funds is found to be higher than that for the exchange traded funds. Third, emerging market funds experience more oscillation in the risk exposure than their developed market counterparts. It is found that a combination of the US macroeconomic state variables and investors’ sentiment can predict future betas significantly. The findings of the paper have important implication for US investors seeking diversification benefits from country mutual funds.

This thesis consists of three essays in behavioral finance: One for the Gain, Three for the Loss is a study of loss aversion in portfolio choice. Using historical returns, I find that the pain of a loss must be greater than three times the pleasure of a gain for investors to hold finitely leveraged portfolios. For lower rates of loss aversion, in particular those proposed in the earlier experimental literature, portfolio allocation to risky assets is infinite. All Guts, No Glory: Trading and Diversification among Online Investors explores the cross-sectional portfolio performance of 16,831 investors at an online discount brokerage firm. Investors hold undiversified portfolios, show a strong preference for risk, and trade aggressively. I show that investors with high portfolio turnover underperform their benchmarks. The degree of diversification, a proxy for investor skill, has a separate and distinct positive effect on performance. Equity Mutual Fund Flows and Stock Returns in Sweden uses time series methods to characterize the relation between unexpected flows to equity mutual funds and returns on the Swedish stock market. I find that concurrent unexpected flows and returns are strongly positively correlated. Unexpected flows have a distinct effect on returns even when other risk factors are considered. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2004

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Agricultural and Resource Economics, Department of Rural Economy. Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on September 20, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T21:00:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 jangunnarturma2003.pdf.jpg: 10051 bytes, checksum: df88fdfd6e17321066b537955510eaa6 (MD5) jangunnarturma2003.pdf: 1111996 bytes, checksum: daac86ce20772b84398c288cb8db5618 (MD5) jangunnarturma2003.pdf.txt: 144885 bytes, checksum: 8fad500e005c99904f6f5d186533c797 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-02-17T00:00:00Z / We study the behavior of a large number of investors, including individuals, corporations and institutions, in the São Paulo Stock Exchange (BOVESPA) by analyzing a history of transactions from 2001 to 2004. Our objective is to investigate whether the disposition effect, i.e. the tendency to sell winners quicker than losers, demonstrated in various empirical papers for a number of stock markets, also holds for investors in the BOVESPA. Using various different cross-sectional measures of the disposition effect, we find that investors tend to sell winners quicker than losers measured for the period as a whole as well as in each year. However, when we test for the disposition effect by investor type, we find different results. While individual investors continue to show the disposition effect, we obtain ambiguous results for the investment behavior of corporations and institutions. The segmentation of the investors´ base by type of investor brings important insights on the presence of the disposition effect. Using a time-series measure of the disposition effect, we find that in every year, all types of investors tend to sell winners quicker than losers, with the exception of the value-based measure for the institutional investor in the year 2004. In order to validate the previous results we analyze the impact that other factors may have on the disposition effect, such as: tax-motivated selling, rebalancing, dividends and the influence of significant price drops in three liquid stocks. We demonstrate that none of these factors changed the tendency to realize winners quicker than losers. / Investigamos o padrão de comportamento de um grande número de investidores entre pessoas físicas, pessoas jurídicas institucionais e não-institucionais que transacionaram na Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (BOVESPA) entre 2001 e 2004. Nosso objetivo foi testar o efeito disposição, ou seja, a tendência a realizar ganhos (winners) antes de perdas (losers), já demonstrado em vários estudos empíricos. Usando várias medidas do efeito disposição em corte-transversal, demonstramos que todos os investidores tendem a realizar winners antes do que losers ao longo de todo o período analisado assim como para cada ano. Entretanto, quando testamos para o efeito disposição por tipo de investidor encontramos resultados distintos. Enquanto os investidores pessoa física ainda apresentam o efeito disposição, os demais investidores demonstram um comportamento ambíguo. Podemos concluir que a segmentação por tipo de investidor traz contribuições relevantes na avaliação do efeito disposição. Usando uma medida em séries temporais, o efeito disposição foi encontrado em todos os anos e para todos os investidores, com exceção dos investidores institucionais no ano de 2004, na utilização da medida baseada em valor (R$). Para validar o resultado anterior aplicamos testes complementares comparando os resultados após isolar alguns fatores como: vendas motivadas pela tributação, rebalanceamento, dividendos e a influência de quedas bruscas de preços de três ações com liquidez. Demonstramos que nenhum destes fatores alterou a tendência a realizar winners antes do que losers.

Submitted by Gisele Isaura Hannickel (gisele.hannickel@fgv.br) on 2011-09-05T20:01:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Thesis finale version.pdf: 527455 bytes, checksum: 835e5bc14bf6752ff6f9c73158e3eb1a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Gisele Isaura Hannickel (gisele.hannickel@fgv.br) on 2011-09-05T20:02:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Thesis finale version.pdf: 527455 bytes, checksum: 835e5bc14bf6752ff6f9c73158e3eb1a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Gisele Isaura Hannickel (gisele.hannickel@fgv.br) on 2011-09-05T20:03:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Thesis finale version.pdf: 527455 bytes, checksum: 835e5bc14bf6752ff6f9c73158e3eb1a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2011-09-06T10:57:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Thesis finale version.pdf: 527455 bytes, checksum: 835e5bc14bf6752ff6f9c73158e3eb1a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-08-08 / Behavioral finance, or behavioral economics, consists of a theoretical field of research stating that consequent psychological and behavioral variables are involved in financial activities such as corporate finance and investment decisions (i.e. asset allocation, portfolio management and so on). This field has known an increasing interest from scholar and financial professionals since episodes of multiple speculative bubbles and financial crises. Indeed, practical incoherencies between economic events and traditional neoclassical financial theories had pushed more and more researchers to look for new and broader models and theories. The purpose of this work is to present the field of research, still ill-known by a vast majority. This work is thus a survey that introduces its origins and its main theories, while contrasting them with traditional finance theories still predominant nowadays. The main question guiding this work would be to see if this area of inquiry is able to provide better explanations for real life market phenomenon. For that purpose, the study will present some market anomalies unsolved by traditional theories, which have been recently addressed by behavioral finance researchers. In addition, it presents a practical application of portfolio management, comparing asset allocation under the traditional Markowitz’s approach to the Black-Litterman model, which incorporates some features of behavioral finance. / Finanças comportamentais, ou economia comportamental, consiste em um campo teórico que justifica que existe importantes variáveis psicológicas e comportamentais que estejam envolvidos em actividades financeiras, tais como decisões de finanças corporativas e de investimentos (alocação de ativos, gestão de portfólios e assim por diante). Este campo tem experimentado um crescente interesse de acadêmicos e profissionais da área financeira desde episódios de várias bolhas especulativas e crises financeiras. Na verdade, incoerências entre os eventos observados no mercado real e a teoria financeira tradicional estão levando mais e mais pesquisadores a olhar para modelos e teorias novos e mais abrangentes. O objetivo deste trabalho é fazer uma revisão do campo de finanças comportamentais, ainda pouco conhecido pela maioria das pessoas. Este trabalho apresentará as suas origens e suas principais teorias, contrastando-as com as teorias tradicionais de finanças. A principal questão que orienta o trabalho é identificar se esta área é capaz de fornecer melhores explicações para os fenômenos reais de mercado. Para esse efeito, o documento vai relatar algumas anomalias anomalias de mercado que não são explicadas pelas teorias tradicionais, que foram atualmente abordadas pelos estudiosos de finanças comportamentais. Além disso, o estudo faz uma aplicação prática para a atividade de gestão de carteiras, comparando a alocação de ativos resultante do modelo tradicional de Markowitz à obtida do modelo de Black e Litterman, que adiciona algumas questões de finanças comportamentais.

La presente tesi fornisce un contributo originale al dibattito esistente tra gli economisti industriali sul rapporto tra concorrenza e asimmetrie informative. Infatti, l’obiettivo principale di questo lavoro consiste nell'investigare, da un punto di vista teorico (e supportato dall'evidenza empirica), come alcune barriere informative presenti nel mercato influenzano le strategie imprenditoriali in diversi contesti competitivi, fornendo implicazioni di policy per autorità garanti della concorrenza e a tutela del consumatore. Nello specifico, il primo capitolo esamina gli incentivi di una impresa dominante in un mercato a monte a offrire contratti di esclusiva ad un monopolista nel mercato a valle, quando vi è incertezza riguardo alla domanda finale dei consumatori. Nei capitoli seguenti, invece, l’analisi si caratterizza dalla presenza del concetto comportamentale di "avversione alla perdita", particolarmente rilevante nelle decisioni di acquisto dei cosiddetti "beni di esperienza". In questi mercati le imprese possono decidere liberamente di permettere test sui propri prodotti prima del loro acquisto, modificando quindi l’utilità attesa dei consumatori. Il secondo capitolo analizza le strategie di vendita per un monopolista. Il terzo capitolo, invece, esamina l’equilibrio di mercato in un contesto competitivo e come l’utilizzo di test sui prodotti possa essere adoperato come strumento collusivo. / This dissertation provides an original contribution to the existing debate between industrial economists on the relationship between competition and information asymmetries. Indeed, the main goal of this work consists in investigating, from a theoretical point of view (and supported by empirical evidence), how some informational frictions in the market affect firm’s strategies in different competitive environments, providing policy implications for competition and consumer protection authorities. Specifically, the first chapter looks at the incentives of a dominant firm in an upstream market to offer exclusive dealing contracts to a monopolist in the downstream market, when there is uncertainty about consumer demand. In the following chapters, instead, the analysis is characterized by the presence of the behavioral concept of "loss aversion", which is particularly relevant in the purchase decisions of the so-called "experience goods". In these markets, firms can freely decide to allow product experimentation before purchase, thus modifying the consumers' expected utility. The second chapter analyzes the monopolist's sales strategies. The third chapter, instead, examines the market equilibrium in a competitive environment and how product experimentation can be used as a collusive device.