Psychology of World Equity Markets

Mainstream financial economics has largely ignored the complex cognitive and motivational factors that guide investor trading decisions and that influence the structure and dynamics of world equity markets. Research shows, however, that investor psychology is reliably linked to predictable momentum and reversals in stock prices and, more generally, to stock market bubbles. The first volume reviews the scientific debate between leading behavioral scientists and proponents of rational markets and rational economic man. It also summarizes key elements of a new psychological theory of stock prices with special emphasis on the formation of investor beliefs and the quality of judgment.The articles in the second Volume support the behavioral approach with international evidence collected from many sources. Major anomalies in financial decision-making and in the behavior of equity markets are interpreted in the context of new experimental, empirical, and theoretical research.