IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v105y2015i5p310-14.html

Neglected Risks: The Psychology of Financial Crises

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Gennaioli
  • Andrei Shleifer
  • Robert Vishny

Abstract

We model a financial market in which investor beliefs are shaped by representativeness. Investors overreact to a series of good news, because such a series is representative of a good state. A few bad news do not change investor minds because the good state is still representative, but enough bad news leads to a radical change in beliefs and a financial crisis. The model generates debt over-issuance, "this time is different" beliefs, neglect of tail risks, under- and over-reaction to information, boom-bust cycles, and excess volatility of prices in a unified psychological model of expectations.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2015. "Neglected Risks: The Psychology of Financial Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 310-314, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:105:y:2015:i:5:p:310-14
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20151091
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.p20151091
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ds/10505/P2015_1091_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly-Chapter 1," MPRA Paper 17452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Christopher L. Foote & Kristopher Gerardi & Paul S. Willen, 2012. "Why did so many people make so many ex post bad decisions? the causes of the foreclosure crisis," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2012-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    3. Gennaioli, Nicola & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2012. "Neglected risks, financial innovation, and financial fragility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 452-468.
    4. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September.
    5. repec:rnp:ecopol:09111 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Ricardo J. Caballero & Alp Simsek, 2013. "Fire Sales in a Model of Complexity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2549-2587, December.
    7. Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly-Preface," MPRA Paper 17451, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "What Comes to Mind," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1399-1433.
    9. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chernenko, Sergey & Hanson, Samuel G. & Sunderam, Adi, 2016. "Who neglects risk? Investor experience and the credit boom," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 248-269.
    2. Gomes, João F. & Grotteria, Marco & Wachter, Jessica A., 2023. "Foreseen risks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    3. Akin, Ozlem & Marín, José María & Peydró, José-Luis, 2020. "Anticipating the financial crisis: Evidence from insider trading in banks," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 35(102), pages 213-267.
    4. Ozlem Akin & José Montalvo & Jaume García Villar & José-Luis Peydró & Josep Raya, 2014. "The real estate and credit bubble: evidence from Spain," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 223-243, August.
    5. David Aikman & Andrew Haldane & Marc Hinterschweiger & Sujit Kapadia, 2018. "Rethinking financial stability," Bank of England working papers 712, Bank of England.
    6. Arnold, Bruce & Borio, Claudio & Ellis, Luci & Moshirian, Fariborz, 2012. "Systemic risk, macroprudential policy frameworks, monitoring financial systems and the evolution of capital adequacy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 3125-3132.
    7. Tortorice, Daniel L., 2018. "Equity return predictability, time varying volatility and learning about the permanence of shocks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 315-343.
    8. Gennaioli, Nicola & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2012. "Neglected risks, financial innovation, and financial fragility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 452-468.
    9. Bordalo, Pedro & Gennaioli, Nicola & Kwon, Spencer Yongwook & Shleifer, Andrei, 2021. "Diagnostic bubbles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1060-1077.
    10. Tyler Muir, 2017. "Financial Crises and Risk Premia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 765-809.
    11. Luintel, Kul B & Li, GuangJie & Khan, Mosahid, 2023. "Finance And Growth: The Unpleasant Burden Of Evidence," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2023/8, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    12. Carlos J. Perez & Manuel Santos, 2017. "On the Dynamics of Speculation in a Model of Bubbles and Manias," Working Papers 2017-02, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    13. Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2017. "Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 213-263.
    14. Andreas Fuster & Benjamin Hebert & David Laibson, 2012. "Natural Expectations, Macroeconomic Dynamics, and Asset Pricing," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-48.
    15. Jean-Louis Combes & Alexandru Minea & Pegdéwendé Nestor Sawadogo, 2019. "Assessing the effects of combating illicit financial flows on domestic tax revenue mobilization in developing countries," CERDI Working papers halshs-02019073, HAL.
    16. Jaume Ventura & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2015. "Debt into growth: how sovereign debt accelerated the first industrial revolution," ECON - Working Papers 194, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    17. Roy Havemann & Henk Janse van Vuuren & Daan Steenkamp & Rossouw van Jaarsveld, 2022. "The bond market impact of the South African Reserve Bank bond purchase programme," ERSA Working Paper Series, Economic Research Southern Africa, vol. 0.
    18. Björn Richter & Dmitry Kuvshinov & Gabriel Jiménez & José-Luis Peydró, 2022. "Monetary Policy, Inflation, and Crises: New Evidence from History and Administrative Data," Working Papers 1378, Barcelona School of Economics.
    19. Matthew Baron & Wei Xiong, 2017. "Credit Expansion and Neglected Crash Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 713-764.
    20. NguyenHuu, Tam, 2022. "The impacts of rare disasters on asset returns and risk premiums in advanced economies (1870–2015)," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:105:y:2015:i:5:p:310-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.