Investor Herding Behavior and its Effect on Stock Market Boom-Bust Cycles

In this study, we test for the presence of investor herding behavior in the Tunisian stock market. Further, we explore the explanatory factors of the occurrence of the probability of stock market booms and busts by combining herding behavior of investors and economic and financial fundamentals. We find that investors exhibit different levels of herding behavior -- herding strongly exists in both booms and busts of stock market. Our results show that herding behavior contributes to an increase in the probability of stock market booms. In addition, the economic and financial fundamentals lead to the emergence of Tunisian stock market boom-bust cycles