This study examines the effects of local stock returns on antidepressant usage using the Truven Health MarketScan® individual prescription drug data. There are three main findings. First, a one standard deviation decrease in local stock return increases local investor's antidepressant usage by...

We examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI), health habits, and financial risk and time preferences. Using a sample of 128 undergraduate business students, we find that participants with higher BMI exhibit greater utility function curvature, greater loss aversion, and greater...

What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went...

The following paper is a theoretical introduction of the misinformation effect to behavioural finance. The misinformation effect causes a memory report regarding an event or particular knowledge to become contaminated with misleading information from another source. The paper aims to describe...

Recent studies have found correlations between risk attitudes and several sociodemographic characteristics. In this paper, we deploy an artefactual fi eld experiment and study whether subjects - non-professionals and financial professionals - are aware of these correlations. This is largely...

Advice is important for decision making, especially in the financial sector. We investigate how individuals assess risk preferences of others given sociodemographic information or pictures. Both non-professionals and fi nancial professionals participate in this artefactual field experiment....

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...

Advice is important for decision making, especially in the financial sector. We investigate how individuals assess risk preferences of others given sociodemographic information or pictures. Both non-professionals and financial professionals participate in this artefactual field experiment....

Recent studies have found correlations between risk attitudes and several sociodemographic characteristics. In this paper, we deploy an artefactual field experiment and study whether subjects - non-professionals and -financial professionals - are aware of these correlations. This is largely...