This is the introduction to the book, “What Investors Really Want.” The book centers on behavioral finance, drawing from research in finance, psychology and marketing, and combining systematic studies with anecdotes and recent events. The book presents the cognitive errors that bedevil...

Cultural background affects the attitudes of immigrants long after they have settled in their new countries, and it affects the attitudes of their descendents as well. For example, levels of trust persist among immigrants to the United States, and relatively high levels of trust among immigrants...

This study explores the links between culture and risk tolerance, based on surveys conducted in 23 countries. Altogether, more than 4,000 individuals participated in the surveys.Risk tolerance is associated with culture. Risk tolerance is relatively low in countries where uncertainty avoidance...

Typical risk questionnaires aimed at helping advisors guide investors are deficient in five ways. First, each investor has a multitude of risk tolerances, one for each goal and its mental account. Probes for one global risk tolerance miss that multitude. Second, the links between answers to...

A belief that markets are efficient is blamed for instigating the crisis we are in and lulling us into complacency as the crisis was approaching. But the debate about the role of such belief in the crisis is unfocused for two reasons. First, a lack of a common definition of market efficiency...

Gaps between optimized portfolios produced by mean-variance optimizers and portfolios that investors prefer come from two sources. One is imprecise estimates of mean-variance parameters. The other is investor preferences beyond high expected returns and low risk. We offer the mean-variance...

Cultural literacy is analogous to financial literacy and is almost as important. Cultural literacy matters to advisors as they design fitting financial plans because clients carry within them the cultures of their countries of origin long after they have settled in their countries of residence....

Cultural background affects the attitudes of immigrants long after they have settled in their new countries, and it affects the attitudes of their descendents as well. For example, levels of trust persist among immigrants to the United States, and relatively high levels of trust among immigrants...

We are in the midst of what might end up as the most significant change to financial regulations since the Great Depression. This is because the financial and economic crisis that continues to engulf us is the most severe crisis since the Great Depression. The markets for houses, mortgages, and...

Correlations between the returns of US stocks and international stocks were higher recently than in the past, reaching 0.86 during the 60 months ending in December 2003. Today's investors note the high correlations between US and international stocks and doubt the benefits of global...