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Delegated Investment Decisions and Rankings

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  • Michael Kirchler
  • Florian Lindner
  • Utz Weitzel

Abstract

Two aspects of social context are central to the finance industry. First, financial professionals usually make investment decisions on behalf of third parties. Second, social competition, in the form of performance rankings, is pervasive. Therefore, we investigate professionals' risk-taking behavior under social competition when investing for others. We run online and lab-in-the-field experiments with 805 financial professionals and show that professionals increase their risk taking for others when they lag behind. Additional survey evidence from 1,349 respondents reveals that professionals' preferences for high rankings are significantly stronger than those of the general population.

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  • Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Utz Weitzel, 2018. "Delegated Investment Decisions and Rankings," Working Papers 2018-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, revised Sep 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:inn:wpaper:2018-07
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    Cited by:

    1. Felix Holzmeister & Martin Holmén & Michael Kirchler & Matthias Stefan & Erik Wengström, 2023. "Delegation Decisions in Finance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(8), pages 4828-4844, August.
    2. Anufriev, Mikhail & Chernulich, Aleksei & Tuinstra, Jan, 2022. "Asset price volatility and investment horizons: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 19-48.
    3. Boyle, Glenn & Stover, Roger & Tiwana, Amrit & Zhylyevskyy, Oleksandr, 2022. "Depositor responses to a banking crisis: Are finance professionals special?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 182-195.
    4. Huber, Christoph & Huber, Jürgen & Hueber, Laura, 2019. "The effect of experts’ and laypeople’s forecasts on others’ stock market forecasts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    5. DELIS, Manthos & GALARIOTIS, Emilios & IOSIFIDI, Maria & MONNE, Jerome, 2023. "Poverty and seeking bank advice: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    6. Christoph Huber & Christian König-Kersting & Matteo M. Marini, 2022. "Experimenting with Financial Professionals," Working Papers 2022-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, revised Jun 2024.
    7. Stefan, Matthias & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael & Sutter, Matthias & Walzl, Markus, 2023. "Monetary and social incentives in multi-tasking: The ranking substitution effect," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    8. Huber, Christoph & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael, 2021. "Market shocks and professionals’ investment behavior – Evidence from the COVID-19 crash," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    9. Zhang, Kun & Yang, Xiaolan & Gao, Mei, 2023. "When to use tournament incentives? Evidence from an investment experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    10. Huber, Christoph & Kirchler, Michael, 2023. "Experiments in finance: A survey of historical trends," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    11. Matthias Stefan & Martin Holmén & Felix Holzmeister & Michael Kirchler & Erik Wengström, 2022. "You can’t always get what you want—An experiment on finance professionals' decisions for others," Working Papers 2022-02, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    12. Polman, Evan & Wu, Kaiyang, 2020. "Decision making for others involving risk: A review and meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Lahav, Yaron & Benzion, Uri, 2022. "What happens to investment choices when interest rates change? An experimental study," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 471-481.
    14. Rose, Julia & Kirchler, Michael & Palan, Stefan, 2023. "Status and reputation nudging," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    15. Afik, Zvika & Dafna, Hofit Hamrani & Lahav, Yaron, 2024. "Winners and losers in investment competition – Experimental study," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    16. Robert M. Gillenkirch & Louis Velthuis, 2023. "Delegated risk-taking, accountability, and outcome bias," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 137-161, October.
    17. Moya-Ponce, Claudine & Madrazo-Lemaroy, Pilar, 2023. "Beliefs that provide a foundation for heuristics and biases in financial decision-making," Cuadernos de Gestión, Universidad del País Vasco - Instituto de Economía Aplicada a la Empresa (IEAE).
    18. Farago, Adam & Holmén, Martin & Holzmeister, Felix & Kirchler, Michael & Razen, Michael, 2019. "Cognitive Skills and Economic Preferences in the Fund Industry," OSF Preprints 964ba, Center for Open Science.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Experimental finance; social competition; rankings; financial professionals; delegated decision making.;
    All these keywords.

    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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