Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP3195
Authors: Bruno Biais; Denis Hilton; Karine Mazurier; Sébastien Pouget
Abstract: In this Paper we measure psychological traits and show that they significantly affect behaviour and performance in a financial context. Based on the answers of 184 subjects to a psychological questionnaire we measured their degree of overconfidence, ie. the extent to which they overestimate the precision of their information, and self-monitoring, which is a form of social intelligence. The subjects also participated in an experimental financial market under asymmetric information in the spirit of Plott and Sunder (1988). In line with the hypothesis that they suffer from the winner?s curse, overconfident subjects are found to earn relatively low trading profits. In contrast, our finding that high self-monitors earn relatively large trading profits is consistent with the hypothesis that they are relatively good at anticipating the trading motivations of the other traders.
Keywords: psychology; overconfidence; self-monitoring; experimental financial markets
JEL Codes: C90; D80; G10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Overconfidence (measured by miscalibration) (D80) | Trading Profits (F19) |
| Self-Monitoring (D91) | Trading Profits (F19) |
| Overconfidence (measured by miscalibration) (D80) | Loss-Making Trades (F11) |
| Self-Monitoring (D91) | Effective Trading Strategies (G13) |