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Rankings and Risk‐Taking in the Finance Industry

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  • MICHAEL KIRCHLER
  • FLORIAN LINDNER
  • UTZ WEITZEL

Abstract

Rankings are omnipresent in the finance industry, yet the literature is silent on how they impact financial professionals' behavior. Using lab‐in‐the‐field experiments with 657 professionals and lab experiments with 432 students, we investigate how rank incentives affect investment decisions. We find that both rank and tournament incentives increase risk‐taking among underperforming professionals, while only tournament incentives affect students. This rank effect is robust to the experimental frame (investment frame vs. abstract frame), to payoff consequences (own return vs. family return), to social identity priming (private identity vs. professional identity), and to professionals' gender (no gender differences among professionals).

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Utz Weitzel, 2018. "Rankings and Risk‐Taking in the Finance Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(5), pages 2271-2302, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:73:y:2018:i:5:p:2271-2302
    DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12701
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    JEL classification:

    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

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