Two aspects of social context are central to the finance industry: (i) financial professionals make investment decisions for customers and (ii) social competition/rankings are a pervasive feature. We link both lines of literature to investigate professionals' risk-taking behavior when investing...

The efficiency of financial markets, but also their potential to produce bubbles are central topics in academic and professional debates. Yet, little is known about the contribution of financial professionals to price efficiency. We run 116 experimental markets with 412 professionals and 502...

Financial misbehavior is widespread and costly. The Dutch government legally requires every employee in the financial sector to take a Hippocratic oath, the so-called "banker's oath.'' We investigate whether moral nudges that directly and indirectly remind financial advisers of their oath affect...

We analyze a controlled price formation experiment in the laboratory that shows evidence for bubbles. We calibrate two models that demonstrate with high statistical significance that these laboratory bubbles have a tendency to grow faster than exponential due to positive feedback. We show that...

We investigate the impact of trader and cash inflow on bubble formation in asset markets with a novel design featuring heterogeneous information and a constant fundamental value. Implementing seven treatments we find that (i) only the joint inflow of traders and cash triggers bubbles...

We investigate the impact of trader and cash inflow on bubble formation in asset markets with a novel design featuring heterogeneous information and a constant fundamental value. Implementing seven treatments we find that (i) only the joint inflow of traders and cash triggers bubbles...

One potential reason for bubbles evolving prior to the financial crisis was excessive risk taking stemming from option-like incentive schemes in financial institutions. By running laboratory asset markets, we investigate the impact of option-like incentives on price formation and trading...

One potential reason for bubbles evolving prior to the financial crisis was excessive risk taking stemming from option-like incentive schemes in financial institutions. By running laboratory asset markets, we investigate the impact of option-like incentives on price formation and trading...

We investigate the impact of trader and cash inflow on bubble formation in asset markets with a novel design featuring heterogeneous information and a constant fundamental value. Implementing seven treatments we find that (i) only the joint inflow of traders and cash triggers bubbles...

Major bubble episodes are rare events. In this paper, we examine what factors might cause some asset price bubbles to become very large. We recreate, in a laboratory setting, some of the specific institutional features investors in the South Sea Company faced in 1720. Several factors have been...