Using data from surveys as well as as real transactions we analyze which and why investors choose funds with performance fees even though these funds may be more expensive. According to agency theory, performance fees could incentivize managers to achieve better returns, but they could also...

Previous research indicates that a lack of financial sophistication might explain the past strong growth in active management. We construct an objective financial literacy score and analyze the relation between financial literacy and mutual fund investment behavior. We show that there is a...

Using German and US brokerage data we find that investors are more likely to sell speculative stocks trading at a gain. Investors' gain realizations are monotonically increasing in a stock's speculativeness. This translates into a high disposition effect for speculative and a much lower...

A recent theory by Gennaioli, Shleifer, and Vishny (2015) proposes that trust is an important component for delegated investing. This paper tests the theory in a laboratory experiment. Participants first play a trust game. Participants then act as investors who have to make two separate,...

This paper evaluates numerous diversification strategies as a possible remedy against widespread costly investment mistakes of individual investors. Our results reveal that a very broad range of simple heuristic allocation schemes offers similar diversification gains, as well-established or...

We perform a large-scale empirical analysis of pairs trading, a popular relative-value arbitrage approach. We start with a cross-country study of 34 international stock markets and uncover that abnormal returns are a persistent phenomenon. We then construct a comprehensive U.S. data set to...

When faced with the challenge of forming a portfolio containing a risky and a risk-free asset, investors tend to apply the same portfolio weights independently of the volatility of the risky asset. This “percentage heuristic” can lead to different levels of portfolio risk when the same...

Do women invest differently than men? We contribute to the answer of this question by analysing the Panel on Household Finances (PHF) of the German Bundesbank. This representative panel collects a wide variety of behavioural and financial variables in the area of household finance. We find that...