Share:


A comprehensive review of behavioral biases in financial decision-making: from classical finance to behavioral finance perspectives

Abstract

This paper offers a detailed analysis of the evolution of financial decision-making theories, focusing on the shift from classical finance to behavioral finance. Classical finance theories, including the Efficient Market Hypothesis and Modern Portfolio Theory, assume that investors behave rationally and that the market is efficient. However, these theories have faced criticisms highlighting the importance of considering irrational behaviors in financial markets. Behavioral finance addresses this gap by integrating psychological insights into financial decision-making. This study systematically reviews the literature on behavioral biases that affect individual investors, identifying fundamental biases and their impact on investment decisions. The analysis emphasizes the role of cognitive limitations and psychological tendencies in shaping market dynamics, influencing asset pricing, investment strategies, and market returns. The research also notes a shift in focus from market-level outcomes to the behavior of individual investors, with an increase in publications. The paper concludes that understanding investors’ biases is crucial for developing effective risk management strategies and investment recommendations, ultimately leading to improved market performance. The findings underscore the growing importance of behavioral finance in explaining investor behavior and market anomalies, highlighting areas for future research in this evolving field.

Keyword : behavioral finance, investment decision-making, behavioral biases, classical finance theories, pompian’s framework, investor personality, rationality in finance

How to Cite
Kanapickienė, R., Vasiliauskaitė, D., Keliuotytė-Staniulėnienė, G., Špicas, R., Kaab Omeir, A., & Kanapickas, T. (2024). A comprehensive review of behavioral biases in financial decision-making: from classical finance to behavioral finance perspectives. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 25(5), 1006–1029. https://doi.org/10.3846/jbem.2024.22314
Published in Issue
Oct 18, 2024
Abstract Views
573
PDF Downloads
478
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

References

Ahmad, Z., Ibrahim, H., & Tuyon, J. (2018). Governance of behavioural biases in asset management industry: Insights from fund managers in Malaysia. Asian Academy of Management Journal of Accounting and Finance, 14(2), 65–102. https://doi.org/10.21315/aamjaf2018.14.2.4

Almansour, B. Y., & Arabyat, Y. A. (2017). Investment decision making among Gulf investors: Behavioural finance perspective. International Journal of Management Studies, 24(1), 41–71. https://doi.org/10.32890/ijms.24.1.2017.10476

Alrabadi, D. W. H., Al-Abdallah, S. Y., & Aljarayesh, N. I. A. (2018). Behavioral biases and investment performance, does gender matter ? Evidence from Amman stock exchange. Jordan Journal of Economic Sciences, 5(1), 77–92. https://doi.org/10.35516/1250-005-001-006

Anjum, Z. U. Z., Phulpoto, N. H., Memon, S. A., Pahore, R. M., Imran, M., & Bhutto, Z. (2019). Impact of psychological biases and personality traits on investor trading behavior. International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 19(8), 115–122. http://paper.ijcsns.org/07_book/201908/20190817.pdf

Ates, S., Coskun, A., Sahin, M. A., & Demircan, M. L. (2016). Impact of financial literacy on the behavioral biases of individual stock investors: Evidence from Borsa Istanbul. Business and Economics Research Journal, 7(3), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.20409/berj.2016321805

Badola, S., Sahu, A. K., & Adlakha, A. (2024). A systematic review on behavioral biases affecting individual investment decisions. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 16(3), 448–476. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-05-2022-0095

Bansal, A., & Jacob, J. (2022). Impact of Price path on disposition bias. Journal of Banking and Finance, 143, Article 106616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2022.106616

Baulkaran, V., & Jain, P. (2024). Behavioral biases of financial planners: The case of retirement funding recommendations. Journal of Behavioral Finance, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427560.2024.2305412

Bikas, E., Jurevičienė, D., Dubinskas, P., & Novickytė, L. (2013). Behavioural finance: The emergence and development trends. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 82, 870–876. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.06.363

Blawatt, K. R. (2016). Appendix A: List of cognitive biases. In Marconomics (pp. 325–336). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78635-566-920161032

Calzadilla, J. F., Bordonado-Bermejo, M. J., & González-Rodrigo, E. (2021). A systematic review of ordinary people, behavioural financial biases. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istrazivanja, 34(1), 2767–2789. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2020.1839526

Carrión-Mero, P., Montalván-Burbano, N., Paz-Salas, N., & Morante-Carballo, F. (2020). Volcanic geomorphology: A review of worldwide research. Geosciences, 10(9), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10090347

Chang, C.-H. (2008). The impact of behavioral pitfalls on investors’ decisions: The disposition effect in the Taiwanese warrant market. Social Behavior and Personality, 36(5), 617–634. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2008.36.5.617

Chaudary, S. (2019). Does salience matter in investment decision?: Differences between individual and professional investors. Kybernetes, 48(8), 1894–1912. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-09-2018-0490

de Dreu, J., & Bikker, J. A. (2012). Investor sophistication and risk taking. Journal of Banking and Finance, 36(7), 2145–2156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.03.023

de Venter, G., & Michayluk, D. (2008). An insight into overconfidence in the forecasting abilities of financial advisors. Australian Journal of Management, 32(3), 545–557. https://doi.org/10.1177/031289620803200309

Dhingra, B., Yadav, M., Saini, M., & Mittal, R. (2024). A bibliometric visualization of behavioral biases in investment decision-making. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 16(3), 503–526. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-05-2022-0081

Dičpinigaitienė, V., & Kanapickienė, R. (2019). Shadow banking issues: Meta-analysis using a network approach. Social Sciences and Arts: Conference Proceedings, 6, 353–360. https://doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2019V/1.1/S03.043

Duong, C., Pescetto, G., & Santamaria, D. (2014). How value–glamour investors use financial information: UK evidence of investors’ confirmation bias. The European Journal of Finance, 20(6), 524–549. https://doi.org/10.1080/1351847X.2012.722117

Fama, E. F. (1965a). Random walks in stock market prices. Financial Analysts Journal, 21(5), 55–59. https://doi.org/10.2469/faj.v21.n5.55

Fama, E. F. (1965b). The behavior of stock-market prices. The Journal of Business, 38(1), 34–105. https://doi.org/10.1086/294743

Fama, E. F. (1970). American Finance Association efficient capital markets: A review of theory and empirical work. The Journal of Finance, 25(2), 383–417. https://doi.org/10.2307/2325486

Gerth, F., Lopez, K., Reddy, K., Ramiah, V., Wallace, D., Muschert, G., Frino, A., & Jooste, L. (2021). The behavioural aspects of financial literacy. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 14(9), Article 395. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm14090395

Gong, C. M., Li, X., Luo, D., & Zhao, H. (2022). The bias of growth opportunity. European Financial Management, 28(4), 926–963. https://doi.org/10.1111/eufm.12323

Graham, B. (1939). Review of The Theory of Investment Value, by J. B. Williams. Journal of Political Economy, 47(2), 276–278. https://doi.org/10.1086/255367

Jain, J., Walia, N., Kaur, M., & Singh, S. (2022). Behavioural biases affecting investors’ decision-making process: A scale development approach. Management Research Review, 45(8), 2040–8269. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-02-2021-0139

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291. https://doi.org/10.2307/1914185

Keller, J., & Pastusiak, R. (2016). The psychology of investing: Stock market recommendations and their impact on investors’ decisions (The example of the Polish stock market). Acta Oeconomica, 66(3), 419–437. https://doi.org/10.1556/032.2016.66.3.3

Kourtidis, D., Šević, Ž., & Chatzoglou, P. (2011). Investors’ trading activity: A behavioural perspective and empirical results. Journal of Socio-Economics, 40(5), 548–557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2011.04.008

Kumar, S., & Goyal, N. (2015). Behavioural biases in investment decision making – a systematic literature review. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 7(1), 88–108. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-07-2014-0022

Kunjal, D., & Peerbhai, F. (2021). Investor overconfidence in the South African exchange traded fund market. Cogent Economics and Finance, 9(1), Article 1978190. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2021.1978190

Lis, A. (2018). Keywords co-occurrence analysis of research on sustainable enterprise and sustainable organisation. Journal of Corporate Responsibility and Leadership, 5(2), 47–66.

Majewski, S. (2018). Confirmation bias in valuation of footballers’ performance rights. In K. Nermend & M. Latuszynska (Eds.), Problems, methods and tools in experimental and behavioral economics. CMEE 2017. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics (pp. 249–259). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99187-0_18

Maknickienė, N., & Rapkevičiūtė, L. (2022). Investigation of gender differences in familiar portfolio choice. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 23(3), 690–705. https://doi.org/10.3846/jbem.2022.17032

Markowitz, H. (1952). Portfolio selection. The Journal of Finance, 7(1), 77–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1952.tb01525.x

Merton, R. C. (1985, October). On the current state of the stock market rationality hypothesis (Woring Paper 1717-85). Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/2125

Mintzberg, H., Raisinghani, D., & Theoret, A. (1976). The structure of “unstructured” decision processes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(2), 246–275. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392045

Mittal, S. K. (2022). Behavior biases and investment decision: Theoretical and research framework. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 14(2), 213–228. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-09-2017-0085

Moutzouris, I. C., & Nomikos, N. K. (2020). Asset pricing with mean reversion: The case of ships. Journal of Banking and Finance, 111, Article 105708. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2019.105708

Mundi, H. S., Kaur, P., & Murty, R. L. N. (2022). A qualitative inquiry into the capital structure decisions of overconfident finance managers of family-owned businesses in India. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 14(3), 357–379. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-02-2020-0019

Mushinada, V. N. C. (2020). Are individual investors irrational or adaptive to market dynamics? Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 25, Article 100243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2019.100243

Mushinada, V. N. C., & Veluri, V. S. S. (2018). Investors overconfidence behaviour at Bombay Stock Exchange. International Journal of Managerial Finance, 14(5), 613–632. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMF-05-2017-0093

Mushinada, V. N. C., & Veluri, V. S. S. (2019). Elucidating investors rationality and behavioural biases in Indian stock market. Review of Behavioral Finance, 11(2), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1108/RBF-04-2018-0034

Mushinada, V. N. C., & Veluri, V. S. S. (2020). Self-attribution, overconfidence and dynamic market volatility in Indian stock market. Global Business Review, 21(4), 970–989. https://doi.org/10.1177/0972150918779288

Nobel Prize Outreach AB. (2023a). Daniel Kahneman – Facts. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2002/kahneman/facts/

Nobel Prize Outreach AB. (2023b). Richard H. Thaler – Facts. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2017/thaler/facts

Nyakurukwa, K., & Seetharam, Y. (2022). Does online investor sentiment explain analyst recommendation changes? Evidence from an emerging market. Managerial Finance, 49(1), 187–204. https://doi.org/10.1108/MF-05-2022-0221

Ossareh, A., Pourjafar, M. S., & Kopczewski, T. (2021). Cognitive biases on the iran stock exchange: Unsupervised learning approach to examining feature bundles in investors’ portfolios. Applied Sciences, 11(22), Article 10916. https://doi.org/10.3390/app112210916

Pompian, M. M. (2006). Behavioral finance and wealth management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119202400

Rasool, N., & Ullah, S. (2020). Financial literacy and behavioural biases of individual investors: Empirical evidence of Pakistan stock exchange. Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Science, 25(50), 261–278. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEFAS-03-2019-0031

Rzeszutek, M., & Szyszka, A. (2020). Overconfidence and initial public offering (IPO) decisions: A behavioural corporate finance survey among polish managers. Argumenta Oeconomica, 1(44), 227–257. https://doi.org/10.15611/aoe.2020.1.10

Sahi, S. K. (2017). Psychological biases of individual investors and financial satisfaction. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 16, 511–535. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.1644

Sharma, A., & Kumar, A. (2020). A review paper on behavioral finance: Study of emerging trends. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 12(2), 137–157. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-06-2017-0050

Sharma, B., & Sushila. (2020). Do individual equity investors behave rationally: A literature review. Pacific Business Review International, 12(12), 183–204. http://www.pbr.co.in/2020/June17.aspx

Singh, D., Malik, G., Jain, P., & Abouraia, M. (2024). A systematic review and research agenda on the causes and consequences of financial overconfidence. Cogent Economics and Finance, 12(1), Article 2348543. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2024.2348543

Toma, F.-M. (2015). Behavioral biases of the investment decisions of Romanian investors on the Bucharest stock exchange. Procedia Economics and Finance, 32(15), 200–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-5671(15)01383-0

Tufan, E., Engin, B., Mer, Y., & Aycan, M. (2017). Who would like to be a millionaire: Isolation and certainty. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3058014

van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2023). VOSviewer manual (Manual for VOSviewer version 1.6.19). Univeristeit Leiden, Leiden. http://www.vosviewer.com/documentation/Manual_VOSviewer_1.6.1.pdf

Wagner, F. (2024). Determinants of conventional and digital investment advisory decisions: A systematic literature review. Financial Innovation, 10, Article 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40854-023-00538-7

Yin, D. (2019). Investment decision based on entropy theory. Modern Economy, 10(4), 1211–1228. https://doi.org/10.4236/me.2019.104083

Zahera, S. A., & Bansal, R. (2018). Do investors exhibit behavioral biases in investment decision making? A systematic review. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 10(2), 210–251. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-04-2017-0028