IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/sfb649/sfb649dp2012-038.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The aging investor: Insights from neuroeconomics

Author

Listed:
  • Mohr, Peter N. C.
  • Heekeren, Hauke R.

Abstract

Individuals in most industrialized countries have to make investment decisions throughout their adult life span to save for their retirement. These decisions substantially affect their living standards in old age. Research on cognitive aging has already demonstrated several changes in cognitive functions (e.g., processing speed) that likely influence investment decisions. This review brings together research on behavioral and neural aspects of financial decision making and aging to advance knowledge on age-related changes in financial decision making. The dopaminergic system plays a key role in financial decision making, both in financial decisions from description and financial decisions from experience. Importantly, both dopaminergic neuromodulation and financial decision making change during healthy aging. Especially when the parameters of the return distribution have to be learned from experience, older adults show a different and suboptimal choice behavior compared to younger adults. Based on these observations we suggest ways to circumvent the age-related bias in financial decision making to improve older adults' wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohr, Peter N. C. & Heekeren, Hauke R., 2012. "The aging investor: Insights from neuroeconomics," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2012-038, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2012-038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/79631/1/715988948.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    2. John A Clithero & Dharol Tankersley & Scott A Huettel, 2008. "Foundations of Neuroeconomics: From Philosophy to Practice," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(11), pages 1-6, November.
    3. Colin F. Camerer, 2007. "Neuroeconomics: Using Neuroscience to Make Economic Predictions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(519), pages 26-42, March.
    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. Mumtaz Ahmad & Asma Tahir & Nadeem Sohail, 2018. "Construction and Validation of Neurotransmitters Scale," Global Social Sciences Review, Humanity Only, vol. 3(4), pages 228-253, December.

    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. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2012-038 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Halko, Marja-Liisa & Lappalainen, Olli & Sääksvuori, Lauri, 2021. "Do non-choice data reveal economic preferences? Evidence from biometric data and compensation-scheme choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 87-104.
    3. Victor Stango & Joanne Yoong & Jonathan Zinman, 2017. "Quicksand or Bedrock for Behavioral Economics? Assessing Foundational Empirical Questions," NBER Working Papers 23625, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Daniel Serra, 2020. "Neuroeconomics: reliable, scientifically legitimate and useful knowledge for economists?," Working Papers hal-02956441, HAL.
    5. Daniel Serra, 2021. "Decision-making: from neuroscience to neuroeconomics—an overview," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 1-80, July.
    6. Victor Stango & Joanne Yoong & Jonathan Zinman, 2017. "The Quest for Parsimony in Behavioral Economics: New Methods and Evidence on Three Fronts," NBER Working Papers 23057, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde & Itzhak Gingi Aharon, 2011. "From Neuroeconomics to Genetics: The Intertemporal Choices Case as an Example," Post-Print ijn_00713466, HAL.
    8. Herrmann, Tabea & Hübler, Olaf & Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2016. "Allais for the poor," Kiel Working Papers 2036, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Giuseppe Attanasi & Ylenia Curci & Patrick Llerena & Maria del Pino Ramos-Sosa & Adriana Carolina Pinate & Giulia Urso, 2019. "Looking at Creativity from East to West: Risk Taking and Intrinsic Motivation in Socially and Culturally Diverse Countries," Working Papers of BETA 2019-38, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    10. Jirjahn, Uwe & Chadi, Cornelia, 2016. "Risk Attitude and Nonmarital Birth," IZA Discussion Papers 10316, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Heineck, Guido & Süssmuth, Bernd, 2013. "A different look at Lenin’s legacy: Social capital and risk taking in the Two Germanies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 789-803.
    12. Falk, Armin & Abeler, Johannes & Kosse, Fabian, 2021. "Malleability of preferences for honesty," CEPR Discussion Papers 16164, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Peter John Robinson & W. J. Wouter Botzen & Fujin Zhou, 2021. "An experimental study of charity hazard: The effect of risky and ambiguous government compensation on flood insurance demand," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 275-318, December.
    14. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    15. Wojciech Hardy & Michal Krawczyk & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2015. ""Thou shalt not leech" Are digital pirates conditional cooperators?," Working Papers 2015-26, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    16. Cardak, Buly A. & Martin, Vance L., 2023. "Household willingness to take financial risk: Stockmarket movements and life‐cycle effects," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    17. Goldzahl, Léontine, 2017. "Contributions of risk preference, time orientation and perceptions to breast cancer screening regularity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 147-157.
    18. Luigi Guiso, 2015. "A Test of Narrow Framing and its Origin," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(1), pages 61-100, March.
    19. Collewet, Marion & Fairley, Kim & Kessels, Roselinde & Knoef, Marike & van Vliet, Olaf, 2024. "The design of welfare: unraveling taxpayers' preferences," OSF Preprints 4am7e, Center for Open Science.
    20. Kirchler, Michael & Lindner, Florian & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Delegated investment decisions and rankings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    21. Dreber, Anna & Heikensten, Emma & Säve-Söderbergh, Jenny, 2022. "Why do women ask for less?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    neuroeconomics; neurofinance; aging; neuromodulation; risk-return models; risk; fMRI; decision making under risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D87 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Neuroeconomics
    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • 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:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2012-038. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sohubde.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.