In this seminar, students will study cognitive processes, behaviour and the underlying biological response to financial decisions. Research methods such as asset market experiments, lottery games, risk preference assessment, psychometrics, neuroimaging and psychophysiology of decision processes will be discussed. Financial bubbles and crashes will be the core interest.
Objective
This course has four main goals: 1) To learn about the most important topics within Behavioural Finance 2) To learn how to conduct behavioural studies, design experiments, plan data collection and experimental tasks 3) To learn about causes of market crashes, factors that influence them, traders' behaviour before, during and after financial crises 4) To investigate a topic of interest, related to behaviour of traders during market crashes.
Additionally, the course gives to the students the opportunity to practice oral presentations, communication skills, report writing and critical thinking.
Content
The course provides an overview of the most important topics in Behavioural Finance. First part of the course involves reading scientific articles, which will be discussed during the seminar. Therefore, attendance is required to pass the course. Each week, a student volunteer will present a paper and the presentation will be followed by a discussion. After obtaining sufficient knowledge of the field, students will select a topic for a behavioural study of their own. The final assignment consists of preparing and conducting a small behavioural study/experiment, analysing the data and presenting the project in the final meeting of the class. Each student will write a scientific report of their study.
Performance assessment
Performance assessment information (valid until the course unit is held again)
Performance assessment as a semester course