IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ausman/v35y2010i2p119-142.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are two heads better than one? An experiment with novice share traders

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Heaney

    (RMIT University, richard.heaney@rmit.edu.au)

  • F. Douglas Foster

    (The Australian National University)

  • Shirley Gregor

    (The Australian National University)

  • Terry O'Neill

    (The Australian National University)

  • Robert Wood

    (Melbourne Business School)

Abstract

We compare the performance of individual and two-person teams in an electronic share-trading task. Trader profits are negatively related to the amount of trader market activity and positively related to trader confidence. While we find no evidence of a difference in trading profit between individual and team traders, profit volatility is more sensitive to trading activity for teams. Team trading profit is positively related to attitude and negatively related to perceptions of the difficulty of the task, with overall team trading activity negatively related to views of team members’ abilities. JEL Code: D44, G14

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Heaney & F. Douglas Foster & Shirley Gregor & Terry O'Neill & Robert Wood, 2010. "Are two heads better than one? An experiment with novice share traders," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 35(2), pages 119-142, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:ausman:v:35:y:2010:i:2:p:119-142
    DOI: 10.1177/0312896210370078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0312896210370078
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0312896210370078?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knetsch, Jack L, 1989. "The Endowment Effect and Evidence of Nonreversible Indifference Curves," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1277-1284, December.
    2. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    3. Prather, Larry J. & Middleton, Karen L. & Cusack, Antony J., 2001. "Are N+1 heads better than one? The timing and selectivity of Australian-managed investment funds," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 379-400, August.
    4. O'Brien, John & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1991. "Dynamic Stock Markets with Multiple Assets: An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1811-1838, December.
    5. Martin G. Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2005. "The Decision Maker Matters: Individual Versus Group Behaviour in Experimental Beauty-Contest Games," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 200-223, January.
    6. Prather, Larry J. & Middleton, Karen L., 2002. "Are N+1 heads better than one?: The case of mutual fund managers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 103-120, January.
    7. Brad M. Barber & Chip Heath & Terrance Odean, 2003. "Good Reasons Sell: Reason-Based Choice Among Group and Individual Investors in the Stock Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(12), pages 1636-1652, December.
    8. David J. Cooper & John H. Kagel, 2005. "Are Two Heads Better Than One? Team versus Individual Play in Signaling Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 477-509, June.
    9. Foster, F Douglas & Smith, Tom & Whaley, Robert E, 1997. "Assessing Goodness-of-Fit of Asset Pricing Models: The Distribution of the Maximal R-Squared," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 591-607, June.
    10. Daniel Kahneman & Jack L. Knetsch & Richard H. Thaler, 1991. "Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 193-206, Winter.
    11. Terrance Odean, 1999. "Do Investors Trade Too Much?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1279-1298, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jennifer K Gippel, 2013. "A revolution in finance?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 38(1), pages 125-146, April.
    2. Robert E. Marks, 2010. "Editorial: A final farewell," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 35(2), pages 115-117, August.

    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. Tamar Kugler & Edgar E. Kausel & Martin G. Kocher, 2012. "Are Groups more Rational than Individuals? A Review of Interactive Decision Making in Groups," CESifo Working Paper Series 3701, CESifo.
    2. Tim Fry & Richard Heaney & Warren McKeown, 2007. "Will investors change their superannuation fund given the choice?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 47(2), pages 267-283, June.
    3. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel Ballester, 2009. "A theory of reference-dependent behavior," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(3), pages 427-455, September.
    4. Keval Amin & Erica Harris, 2022. "The Effect of Investor Sentiment on Nonprofit Donations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(2), pages 427-450, January.
    5. Walter Bossert & Yves Sprumont, 2009. "Non‐Deteriorating Choice," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(302), pages 337-363, April.
    6. Besedes, Tibor & Deck, Cary & Quintanar, Sarah & Sarangi, Sudipta & Shor, Mikhael, 2011. "Free-Riding and Performance in Collaborative and Non-Collaborative Groups," MPRA Paper 33948, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Martin Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2007. "Individual versus group behavior and the role of the decision making procedure in gift-exchange experiments," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 63-88, March.
    8. He, Haoran & Martinsson, Peter & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Group decision making under risk: An experiment with student couples," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 691-693.
    9. Domenico Colucci & Chiara Franco & Vincenzo Valori, 2021. "Endowment effects at different time scenarios: the role of ownership and possession," Discussion Papers 2021/279, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    10. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    11. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    12. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    13. David Masclet & Youenn Loheac & Laurent Denant-Boemont & Nathalie Colombier, 2004. "Group and individual risk preferences: a lottery-choice experiment," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques bla06063, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), revised Sep 2006.
    14. Peter D. Lunn, 2013. "Telecommunications Consumers: A Behavioral Economic Analysis," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 167-189, April.
    15. Ongena, Steven & Tümer-Alkan, Günseli & Vermeer, Bram, 2011. "Corporate choice of banks: Decision factors, decision maker, and decision process -- First evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 326-351, April.
    16. Eitan Hourie & Miki Malul & Raphael Bar-El, 2018. "The Value of Job Security: Does Having It Matter?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 1131-1145, October.
    17. D'Orlando, Fabio & Ferrante, Francesco, 2009. "The demand for job protection: Some clues from behavioural economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 104-114, January.
    18. Jennifer Arlen & Stephan Tontrup, 2015. "Does the Endowment Effect Justify Legal Intervention? The Debiasing Effect of Institutions," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 143-182.
    19. Rau, Holger A., 2015. "The disposition effect in team investment decisions: Experimental evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 272-282.
    20. D'Orlando, Fabio & Ferrante, Francesco, 2015. "The benefits of stabilization policies revisited," MPRA Paper 67321, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Share market trading; teams versus individual trading;

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:sae:ausman:v:35:y:2010:i:2:p:119-142. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.agsm.edu.au .

    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.