Behavioral finance argues that some financial phenomena can plausibly be understood using models in which some agents are not fully rational. The field has two building blocks: limits to arbitrage , which argues that it can be difficult for rational traders to undo the dislocations caused by...

Recent literature in empirical finance is surveyed in its relation to underlying behavioral principles, principles which come primarily from psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The behavioral principles discussed are: prospect theory, regret and cognitive dissonance, anchoring, mental...