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Evolutions and Challenges of Behavioral Finance: Dr. V. Raman Nair, Anu Antony
Evolutions and Challenges of Behavioral Finance: Dr. V. Raman Nair, Anu Antony
Abstract: This article presents the evolution of behavioral finance, which is a new approach in capital market. This study reveals the
effect of psychological factors in investment decision making process, which was a strong contradiction to the Efficient Market
Hypothesis. Behavioral finance is not a replacement to the classical finance paradigm, but an alternative solution to explain the market
inefficiency and the irrational behavior of investor.
Keywords: behavioral finance, classical finance, market efficiency, investment decision, psychological factors, market anomalies.
1. Introduction
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3. Behavioral Finance
In particular, there are two representative topics in
behavioral finance: -cognitive psychology and the limits of
arbitrage (Ritter, 2002). Cognitive psychology is the
scientific study of human beings cognition or the mental
processes considered to form human behavior. It explains
the systematic errors made by the investors in the way they
take decisions in process of investment decision. The
perspectives on the limits of arbitrage predict the
effectiveness of arbitrage forces under any circumstances.
Behavioral Finance suggests that there are limits to
Arbitrage as there exist investor behavior to buy the
overpriced and sell the underpriced securities in turn
disturbing the parity condition in the short run because of the
risk perception (Ross, Westerfield, Jaffe, & Jordan, 2008).
Many topics within the arena of behavioral finance relate to
cognitive psychology are exhibited in Table 1. These topics
cover various aspects in the behavioral finance literature that
have been studied over the past 30 years. The validity of
these topics is continuously examined by various research
scholars.
Financial Psychology
Cognitive Dissonance
Contrarian Investing
Herd Behavior
Market Inefficiency
Under-reaction
Irrational Behavior
Behavioral Economics
Hindsight Bias
Economic Psychology
Group Polarization
Behavioral Economics
Behavioral Accounting
Cognitive Psychology
Experimental Psychology
View of Experts vs. Novices
Cascades
Fear
Crashes
Greed
Fads
Framing
Heuristics
Gender Bias
Preferences
Manias
Risky Shift
Panics
Issues of Trust
Issues of Knowledge
Familiarity Bias
Information Overload
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b. Framing
Framing deals with the way people code events. Framing
separates form from substance and thus deals with
perceptions. Framing has been defined as a decision makers
view of the problem and possible outcomes (Ackert and
Deaves, 2010). People exhibit frame dependence, either due
to cognitive or emotional reasons. The cognitive aspects
concern the way people organize their information while
emotional aspects deal with the people the way they register
the information.
7. Conclusions
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