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Social Status and Risk-Taking in Investment Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Lindner

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods)

  • Michael Kirchler

    (University of Innsbruck)

  • Stephanie Rosenkranz

    (Utrecht University School of Economics)

  • Utz Weitzel

    (Radboud University)

Abstract

A pervasive feature in the finance industry is relative performance, which can include extrinsic (money), intrinsic (self-image), and reputational (status) motives. In this paper, we model a portfolio decision with two assets and investigate how reputational motives (i.e., the public announcement of the winners or losers) influence risk-taking in investment decisions vis-a-vis intrinsic motives. We test our hypotheses experimentally with 864 students and 330 financial professionals. We find that reputational motives play a minor role among financial professionals, as the risk-taking of underperformers is already increased due to intrinsic motives. Student behavior, however, is mainly driven by reputational motives with risk-taking levels that come close to those of professionals when winners or losers are announced publicly. This indicates that professionals show higher levels of intrinsic (self-image) incentives to outperform others compared to non-professionals (students), but a similar behavior can be sparked among the latter by adding reputational incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Lindner & Michael Kirchler & Stephanie Rosenkranz & Utz Weitzel, 2019. "Social Status and Risk-Taking in Investment Decisions," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2019_07, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2019_07
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Brice Corgnet & Camille Cornand & Nobuyuki Hanaki, 2021. "Emotional Markets: Competitive Arousal, Overbidding and Bubbles," Working Papers 2117, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    2. An, Jiafu & Jiang, Mengfei & Xu, Jiaman, 2021. "Professional norms and risk-taking of bank employees: Do expectations of peers’ risk preferences matter?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    3. Brice Corgnet & Camille Cornand & Nobuyuki Hanaki, 2021. "Risk-Taking and Tail Events Across Trading Institutions," Working Papers halshs-03357898, HAL.
    4. Brice Corgnet & Camille Cornand & Nobuyuki Hanaki, 2021. "Risk-Taking and Tail Events Across Trading Institutions," Working Papers hal-03468913, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    experimental finance; behavioral economics; investment game; rank incentives; social status; reputational motives;
    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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