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Myopic Loss Aversion: A Behavioral Answer to the Equity Premium Puzzle?
Stocks yield much higher returns than bonds and other riskless securities. In fact, in the last 100 years US equities have seen an 8% average annual real return, compared to only a 1% return for more riskless securities. This gap is called the equity premium puzzle – why are equities valued so much higher than securities? One behavioral theory attributes the equity premium puzzle to what’s known as myopic loss aversion (MLA) – the idea that loss-averse investors (as all investors are) take too short-term a view of their investments, leading them to react overly negatively to short-term losses. We designed the first natural field experimental evidence to show that MLA exists for professional traders.
Information Avoidance in the Information Age
Ignorance is bliss: How much would you pay to avoid threatening information?
Three Ways the Internet of Things Is Shaping Consumer Behavior
The interconnection of devices within the “Internet of Things” (IoT) creates new data sources. Companies can now better observe people’s choices and test the effectiveness of different mechanisms to activate and retain more customers. It may also help policymakers overcome one of the most frequent problems of policy design: the lack of personalized content. We argue that the IoT not only disrupts the way we track our actions and monitor our goals, but also allows the identification of effective methods to alter our behavior. This is optimized by the combination of IoT, data analytics and behavioral science.
A Nudge in the Green Direction
Despite good intentions, environmentally friendly attitudes do not always translate into corresponding food choices (the so-called intention-behavior gap). To investigate the potential benefits of behavioral nudges, the Flemish government’s Environmental, Nature and Energy Department, together with its partners, conducted tests in several retail locations. The results of our research are reported in this post.
Retirement Planning, Psychology, and Behavioral Economics
Planning our retirement is an endeavour we need to undertake sooner or later. A well thought-out pension plan must be able to ensure our well-being during a long period of professional inactivity. However, a striking finding is that people do not save enough for their retirement. They have difficulties to design a retirement plan tailored to their needs and end up with an insufficient pension income and an impoverished lifestyle. Behavioural economics has pointed out some of the problems that affect retirement planning.
How Donald Trump Won the Election: A Behavioral Economics Explanation
By Tim Gohmann While the media focused on Donald [...]