In this paper, we analyze the investment patterns of a large number of clients of a major Israeli brokerage house during 1994. We compare the behavior of clients making independent investment decisions to that of investors whose accounts were managed by brokerage professionals. Our main...

One of the most intriguing questions in insurance is the preference of consumers for low or zero deductible insurance policies. This stands in sharp contrast to a theorem proved by Mossin, 1968, that under quite common assumptions when the price of insurance is higher than its actuarial value,...

This paper compares the trading patterns of amateur and professional investors during the days following the weekend. The comparison is based on all the daily transactions of a sample of both amateurs and professionally managed investors in a major brokerage house in Israel from 1994 to1998. We...

Security analysts offer a privileged entry point to study the collective construction of worth in markets characterized by Knightian uncertainty. Analysts have been portrayed as information-processors by neoclassic economists and as conformists by neo-institutional sociologists, but neither...