We use weekly survey data on short-term and medium-term sentiment of German investors to estimate the parameters of a stochastic model of opinion dynamics. The bivariate nature of our data set also allows us to explore the interaction between the two hypothesized opinion formation processes,...

This paper employs a new and comprehensive data set to investigate short-term herding behavior of institutional investors. Using data of all transactions made by financial institutions in the German stock market, we show that herding behavior occurs on a daily basis. However, in contrast to...

We develop a financial market model with interacting chartists and fundamentalists that embeds the famous bull and bear market model of Huang and Day as a special case. Their model is given by a one-dimensional continuous piecewise-linear map. Our model, on the other hand, is more flexible and...

Previous research has documented robust links between seasonal variation in length of day, seasonal depression (known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD), risk aversion, and stock market returns. The influence of SAD on market returns, known as the SAD effect, is large. The authors study the...

We study the dynamics of a Lucas-tree model with finitely lived agents who "learn from experience." Individuals update expectations by Bayesian learning based on observations from their own lifetimes. In this model, the stock price exhibits stochastic boom-and-bust fluctuations around the...

We show that a common (identical across investors) irrationality in information processing can be enough to create nontrivial trade, using one of standard partial-equilibrium environments. We can attribute this trade to their common irrationality because we strip the investors and their...

This paper proposes the Shannon entropy as an appropriate one-dimensional measure of behavioural trading patterns in financial markets. The concept is applied to the illustrative example of algorithmic vs. non-algorithmic trading and empirical data from Deutsche Börse's electronic cash equity...

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...