"Time and time again, individual investors discover - all too late - that picking stocks is a loser's game. The alternative lies with index funds. Index funds allows investors to invest more cheaply while prospering all the more because the money saved on investment expenses stays in one's own...

WThis doctoral thesis focuses on the effects of investor sentiment on asset pricing and the challenges of portfolio optimization under parameter uncertainty. The first essay "Sentiment risk premia in the cross-section of global equity" applies a recently developed sentiment proxy to the...