IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-00491137.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hindsight Bias, Risk Perception, and Investment Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Biais Bruno

    (CRM - Centre de Recherche en Management - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Toulouse - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Martin Weber

Abstract

Once they have observed information, hindsight-biased agents fail to remember how ignorant they were initially; "they knew it all along." We formulate a theoretical model of this bias, providing a foundation for empirical measures and implying that hindsight-biased agents learning about volatility will underestimate it. In an experiment involving 66 students from Mannheim University, we find that hindsight bias reduces volatility estimates. In another experiment, involving 85 investment bankers in London and Frankfurt, we find that more biased agents have lower performance. These findings are robust to differences in location, information, overconfidence, and experience

Suggested Citation

  • Biais Bruno & Martin Weber, 2009. "Hindsight Bias, Risk Perception, and Investment Performance," Post-Print halshs-00491137, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00491137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klayman, Joshua & Soll, Jack B. & Gonzalez-Vallejo, Claudia & Barlas, Sema, 1999. "Overconfidence: It Depends on How, What, and Whom You Ask, , , , , , , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 216-247, September.
    2. George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2003. "Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1209-1248.
    3. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    4. Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2005. "Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 523-534, February.
    5. Glaser, Markus & Langer, Thomas & Weber, Martin, 2005. "Overconfidence of Professionals and Lay Men: Individual Differences Within and Between Tasks?," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 05-25, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    6. Bruno Biais & Denis Hilton & Karine Mazurier & Sébastien Pouget, 2005. "Judgemental Overconfidence, Self-Monitoring, and Trading Performance in an Experimental Financial Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 287-312.
    7. Camerer, Colin F, 1987. "Do Biases in Probability Judgment Matter in Markets? Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 981-997, December.
    8. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2007. "Overconfidence and trading volume," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, June.
    9. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    10. Matthew Rabin, 1998. "Psychology and Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 11-46, March.
    11. Donald L. Keefer & Samuel E. Bodily, 1983. "Three-Point Approximations for Continuous Random Variables," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(5), pages 595-609, May.
    12. Camerer, Colin & Loewenstein, George & Weber, Martin, 1989. "The Curse of Knowledge in Economic Settings: An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1232-1254, October.
    13. Weber, Martin & Mangelsdorff, Lukas, 1998. "Hindsight-Bias im Prinzipal-Agent-Kontext: Die Aktennotiz als Antwort?," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 98-03, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    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. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2007. "Overconfidence and trading volume," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, June.
    2. Bruno Biais & Denis Hilton & Karine Mazurier & Sébastien Pouget, 2005. "Judgemental Overconfidence, Self-Monitoring, and Trading Performance in an Experimental Financial Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 287-312.
    3. Itzhak Ben-David & John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey, 2007. "Managerial Overconfidence and Corporate Policies," NBER Working Papers 13711, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2013. "Overconfidence, experience, and professionalism: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 92-101.
    5. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    6. Leigh Anderson & Kostas G. Stamoulis, 2006. "Applying Behavioural Economics to International Development Policy," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-24, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Menkhoff, Lukas & Nikiforow, Marina, 2009. "Professionals' endorsement of behavioral finance: Does it impact their perception of markets and themselves?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 318-329, August.
    8. Itzhak Ben-David & John R. Graham, 2013. "Managerial Miscalibration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(4), pages 1547-1584.
    9. Nikiforow, Marina, 2009. "Does training on behavioral finance influence fund managers' perception and behavior?," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-419, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    10. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Overconfidence and bubbles in experimental asset markets," MPRA Paper 26388, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Development of the overconfidence measurement instrument for the economic experiment," MPRA Paper 26384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Anderson, C. Leigh & Cullen, Alison & Stamoulis, Kostas, 2008. "Preference variability along the policy chain in Vietnam," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1729-1745, October.
    13. Markus Glaser & Thomas Langer & Martin Weber, 2007. "On the Trend Recognition and Forecasting Ability of Professional Traders," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 176-193, December.
    14. Phan, Thuy Chung & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Wang, Mei, 2018. "What leads to overtrading and under-diversification? Survey evidence from retail investors in an emerging market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 39-55.
    15. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Development of the overconfidence measurement instrument for the economic experiment," MPRA Paper 26384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Alen Nosić & Martin Weber, 2010. "How Riskily Do I Invest? The Role of Risk Attitudes, Risk Perceptions, and Overconfidence," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(3), pages 282-301, September.
    17. Fellner, Gerlinde & Krügel, Sebastian, 2012. "Judgmental overconfidence: Three measures, one bias?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 142-154.
    18. Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde & Krügel, Sebastian, 2014. "Judgmental overconfidence and trading activity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 827-842.
    19. Oberlechner, Thomas & Osler, Carol, 2012. "Survival of Overconfidence in Currency Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 91-113, February.
    20. Andersson, Patric, 2005. "Overconfident but yet well-calibrated and underconfident : a research not on judgmental miscalibration and flawed self-assessment," Papers 05-37, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.

    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:hal:journl:halshs-00491137. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.