IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oxf/wpaper/766.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Double-Channeled Effects of Experience on Individual Investment Decisions: Experimental Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Peiran Jiao

Abstract

Investors in the financial markets typically have access to both descriptive information of assets, from brochures, financial analysts, reports, etc., and own experience.However, little is known about the role of experience in investment decisions. This paper investigates this issue by experimentally testing the effects of experience in aninvestment task with choice feedback and varying levels of descriptive information. We document the double-channeled effects of experience: when elicited beliefs were controlledfor, participants significantly relied on experience regardless of the descriptions, behaving consistently with the law of effect; additionally, beliefs were also distorted by experience, in that participants were more optimistic about assets from which they gained, and pessimistic about previously unowned assets. In a calibration exercise, reinforcement learning significantly added predictive power to expected utility models.

Suggested Citation

  • Peiran Jiao, 2015. "The Double-Channeled Effects of Experience on Individual Investment Decisions: Experimental Evidence," Economics Series Working Papers 766, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:766
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d280040c-0b33-49b8-a041-19a5434fd2d8
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David, 1998. "Learning in games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 631-639, May.
    2. Gervais, Simon & Odean, Terrance, 2001. "Learning to be Overconfident," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 1-27.
    3. Erev, Ido & Roth, Alvin E, 1998. "Predicting How People Play Games: Reinforcement Learning in Experimental Games with Unique, Mixed Strategy Equilibria," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 848-881, September.
    4. Mookherjee Dilip & Sopher Barry, 1994. "Learning Behavior in an Experimental Matching Pennies Game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 62-91, July.
    5. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier L'Haridon & Corina Paraschiv, 2011. "Experienced vs. Described Uncertainty: Do We Need Two Prospect Theory Specifications?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(10), pages 1879-1895, October.
    6. Markku Kaustia & Samuli Knüpfer, 2008. "Do Investors Overweight Personal Experience? Evidence from IPO Subscriptions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2679-2702, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Zion, Uri Ben & Erev, Ido & Haruvy, Ernan & Shavit, Tal, 2010. "Adaptive behavior leads to under-diversification," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 985-995, December.
    9. Lei Feng & Mark Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351, September.
    10. Loomes, Graham & Sugden, Robert, 1982. "Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 805-824, December.
    11. Sergiu Hart & Andreu Mas-Colell, 2013. "A Simple Adaptive Procedure Leading To Correlated Equilibrium," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Simple Adaptive Strategies From Regret-Matching to Uncoupled Dynamics, chapter 2, pages 17-46, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Kaustia, Markku & Knüpfer, Samuli, 2012. "Peer performance and stock market entry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 321-338.
    13. Greenwood, Robin & Nagel, Stefan, 2009. "Inexperienced investors and bubbles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 239-258, August.
    14. , P. & , Peyton, 2006. "Regret testing: learning to play Nash equilibrium without knowing you have an opponent," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(3), pages 341-367, September.
    15. Friedman, Daniel & Huck, Steffen & Oprea, Ryan & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2015. "From imitation to collusion: Long-run learning in a low-information environment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 185-205.
    16. Colin Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho, 1999. "Experience-weighted Attraction Learning in Normal Form Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 827-874, July.
    17. David Cooper & John Kagel, 2008. "Learning and transfer in signaling games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 34(3), pages 415-439, March.
    18. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 1998. "The Theory of Learning in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061945, December.
    19. Lei Feng & Mark S. Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351.
    20. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2011. "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 373-416.
    21. Gary Charness & Dan Levin, 2005. "When Optimal Choices Feel Wrong: A Laboratory Study of Bayesian Updating, Complexity, and Affect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1300-1309, September.
    22. Weber, Martin & Camerer, Colin F., 1998. "The disposition effect in securities trading: an experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 167-184, January.
    23. Steven Callander, 2011. "Searching and Learning by Trial and Error," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2277-2308, October.
    24. Yao-Min Chiang & David Hirshleifer & Yiming Qian & Ann E. Sherman, 2011. "Do Investors Learn from Experience? Evidence from Frequent IPO Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1560-1589.
    25. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Style investing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 161-199, May.
    26. Kelly, Morgan, 1995. "All their eggs in one basket: Portfolio diversification of US households," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 87-96, June.
    27. Christine Kaufmann & Martin Weber & Emily Haisley, 2013. "The Role of Experience Sampling and Graphical Displays on One's Investment Risk Appetite," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 323-340, July.
    28. Jonathan M. Karpoff, 1988. "Costly Short Sales And The Correlation Of Returns With Volume," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 11(3), pages 173-188, September.
    29. Ravi Dhar & Ning Zhu, 2006. "Up Close and Personal: Investor Sophistication and the Disposition Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(5), pages 726-740, May.
    30. Shefrin, Hersh & Statman, Meir, 1985. "The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 777-790, July.
    31. Elena Asparouhova & Michael Hertzel & Michael Lemmon, 2009. "Inference from Streaks in Random Outcomes: Experimental Evidence on Beliefs in Regime Shifting and the Law of Small Numbers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(11), pages 1766-1782, November.
    32. Young, H. Peyton, 2009. "Learning by trial and error," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 626-643, March.
    33. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate & Jon Yan, 2011. "Overconfidence and Early‐Life Experiences: The Effect of Managerial Traits on Corporate Financial Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1687-1733, October.
    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. Heinrich H. Nax, 2016. "When is Market the Benchmark? Reinforcement Evidence from Repurchase Decisions," Economics Series Working Papers 781, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    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. John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai & Benjamin Ranish, 2014. "Getting Better or Feeling Better? How Equity Investors Respond to Investment Experience," NBER Working Papers 20000, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    3. Barber, Brad M. & Odean, Terrance, 2013. "The Behavior of Individual Investors," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1533-1570, Elsevier.
    4. Duxbury, Darren & Hudson, Robert & Keasey, Kevin & Yang, Zhishu & Yao, Songyao, 2015. "Do the disposition and house money effects coexist? A reconciliation of two behavioral biases using individual investor-level data," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 55-68.
    5. Gregor Dorfleitner & Lars Hornuf & Martina Weber, 2023. "Paralyzed by shock: the portfolio formation behavior of peer-to-business lending investors," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 1037-1073, April.
    6. Chan, Kalok & Wang, Baolian & Yang, Zhishu, 2019. "Why investors do not buy cheaper securities: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 59-76.
    7. Chiang, Yao-Min & Hirshleifer, David & Qian, Yiming & Sherman, Ann, 2009. "Learning to Fail? Evidence from Frequent IPO Investors," MPRA Paper 16854, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Aug 2009.
    8. Peiran Jiao, 2015. "Losing from Naive Reinforcement Learning: A Survival Analysis of Individual Repurchase Decisions," Economics Series Working Papers 765, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Gregor Dorfleitner & Lars Hornuf & Martina Weber, 2018. "Paralyzed by Shock: The Portfolio Formation Behavior of Peer-to-Business Lending Investors," CESifo Working Paper Series 7092, CESifo.
    10. Arnold, Marc & Pelster, Matthias & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2022. "Attention triggers and investors’ risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 846-875.
    11. Xu, Rong & Liu, Yaodong & Hu, Nan & Guo, Jie (Michael), 2022. "What drives individual investors in the bear market?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(6).
    12. Camille Magron & Maxime Merli, 2012. "Stocks repurchase and sophistication of individual investors," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2012-02, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    13. Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & David Hume & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein & Neil Stewart, 2023. "At the Top of the Mind: Peak Prices and the Disposition Effect," Discussion Papers 2023-09, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    14. Gao, Huasheng & Shi, Donghui & Zhao, Bin, 2021. "Does good luck make people overconfident? Evidence from a natural experiment in the stock market," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    15. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    16. Katrin Gödker & Terrance Odean & Paul Smeets, 2023. "Disposed to Be Overconfident," CESifo Working Paper Series 10357, CESifo.
    17. Wenjun Wang, 2023. "Can experience mitigate precautionary bidding? Evidence from a quasi-experiment at an IPO auction," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(2), pages 148-163, March.
    18. Peiran Jiao & Heinrich H. Nax, 2016. "When is Market the Benchmark? Reinforcement Evidence from Repurchase Decisions," Economics Papers 2016-W01, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    19. Chih-Hsiang Chang & Shan-Shan Chen & Song-Lin Hsieh, 2017. "Asymmetric Reinforcement Learning and Conditioned Responses During the 2007–2009 Global Financial Crisis: Evidence from Taiwan," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(02), pages 1-44, June.
    20. Anagol, Santosh & Balasubramaniam, Vimal & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2021. "Learning from noise: Evidence from India’s IPO lotteries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 965-986.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Description; Experience; Investment Decision; Belief Distortion.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    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:oxf:wpaper:766. 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: Anne Pouliquen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.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.