IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2004.143.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Behavioral Biases of Dealers in U.S. Treasury Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • David Goldreich

    (London Business School and CEPR)

Abstract

This paper provides evidence of bounded rationality by large dealers in U.S. Treasury auctions. I argue that these dealers use a heuristic of yield-space bidding which leads to biases manifested in three ways: they submit dominated bids, i.e., those that could be improved without raising the bidding price; they bid in a manner that disregards the unevenly spaced price grid; and they round bids in yield space. Consistent with bounded rationality, I show that bidders are less susceptible to bias when the cost of suboptimal bidding is high. While the literature provides substantial evidence of behavioral biases among individual investors, they are less well documented for large sophisticated institutions that are likely to be important for setting asset prices. These primary bond dealers who regularly bid for billions of dollars in Treasury bill auctions are precisely such economic agents.

Suggested Citation

  • David Goldreich, 2004. "Behavioral Biases of Dealers in U.S. Treasury Auctions," Working Papers 2004.143, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
  • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2004.143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NDL2004-143.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    2. Michael J. Fleming & Kenneth D. Garbade & Frank Keane, 2005. "Anomalous Bidding In Short‐Term Treasury Bill Auctions," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 28(2), pages 165-176, June.
    3. Shleifer, Andrei, 2000. "Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292272.
    4. Terrance Odean, 1998. "Are Investors Reluctant to Realize Their Losses?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1775-1798, October.
    5. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    6. John Conlisk, 1996. "Why Bounded Rationality?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 669-700, June.
    7. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    8. French, Kenneth R & Poterba, James M, 1991. "Investor Diversification and International Equity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 222-226, May.
    9. Cammack, Elizabeth B, 1991. "Evidence on Bidding Strategies and the Information in Treasury Bill Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 100-130, February.
    10. Huberman, Gur, 2001. "Familiarity Breeds Investment," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 659-680.
    11. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    12. Harris, Lawrence, 1991. "Stock Price Clustering and Discreteness," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(3), pages 389-415.
    13. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2001. "How Distance, Language, and Culture Influence Stockholdings and Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 1053-1073, June.
    14. Nyborg, Kjell G. & Sundaresan, Suresh, 1996. "Discriminatory versus uniform Treasury auctions: Evidence from when-issued transactions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 63-104, September.
    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. Maria De Paola & Francesca Gioia & Fabio Piluso, 2020. "Does Reminding of Behavioural Biases Increase Returns from Financial Trading? A Field Experiment," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(2), pages 1-1, February.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    3. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    4. Itzhak Venezia, 2018. "Lecture Notes in Behavioral Finance," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 10751, Juni.
    5. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    6. Lukas Menkhoff & Maik Schmeling & Ulrich Schmidt, 2010. "Are All Professional Investors Sophisticated?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(4), pages 418-440, November.
    7. Bailey, Warren & Kumar, Alok & Ng, David, 2010. "Behavioral Biases of Mutual Fund Investors," Working Papers 10-23, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    8. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    9. Ning Zhu, 2002. "The Local Bias of Individual Investors," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm272, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.
    10. Bailey, Warren & Kumar, Alok & Ng, David, 2011. "Behavioral biases of mutual fund investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 1-27, October.
    11. Tekçe, Bülent & Yılmaz, Neslihan & Bildik, Recep, 2016. "What factors affect behavioral biases? Evidence from Turkish individual stock investors," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 515-526.
    12. Maximilian Koestner & Benjamin Loos & Steffen Meyer & Andreas Hackethal, 2017. "Do individual investors learn from their mistakes?," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 669-703, July.
    13. Nicolas Coeurdacier & Hélène Rey, 2013. "Home Bias in Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 63-115, March.
    14. Malcolm Baker & Richard S. Ruback & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "Behavioral Corporate Finance: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10863, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. 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.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g81p7j6b6 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Ning Zhu, 2002. "The Local Bias of Individual Investors," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm272, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.
    18. Green, T. Clifton & Jame, Russell, 2013. "Company name fluency, investor recognition, and firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 813-834.
    19. Park, Keun Woo & Jeong, Seong Hoon & Oh, Ji Yeol Jimmy, 2019. "Foreigners at the gate? Foreign investor trading and the disposition effect of domestic individual investors," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 165-180.
    20. Shane Frederick & Amanda Levis & Steven Malliaris & Andrew Meyer, 2018. "Valuing bets and hedges: Implications for the construct of risk preference," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(6), pages 501-508, November.
    21. Nicolosi, Gina & Peng, Liang & Zhu, Ning, 2009. "Do individual investors learn from their trading experience?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 317-336, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Treasury auctions; Behavioral finance;

    JEL classification:

    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • H74 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Borrowing
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fem:femwpa:2004.143. 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: Alberto Prina Cerai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.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.