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Behavioral Finance And Its Impact On Investing, Jordan Fieger Apr 2017

Behavioral Finance And Its Impact On Investing, Jordan Fieger

Senior Honors Theses

The field of behavioral finance has seen incredible growth over the past half century as it has explored the effect that cognitive psychological biases can have on investors’ financial decisions. Behavioral finance stands in stark contrast to the efficient market hypothesis, as it attributes market inefficiencies to investors who are not perfectly rational human beings. It offers a solution to the observed 3.5% gap that active equity investors miss out on in the market compared to passive index funds, which it attributes to their emotions and psychological biases. These common human biases can be grouped into five major categories: heuristics, …


The Subprime Mortgage Collapse And Its Effects On The Economy, Joseph Krmpotich Apr 2017

The Subprime Mortgage Collapse And Its Effects On The Economy, Joseph Krmpotich

Senior Honors Theses

The subprime mortgage crisis occurred due to a number of factors. Included in these factors were the issuance of subprime loans, the securitization of mortgages in the investment banking system, and the deregulation and ultimate failure of the shadow banking system. These causes were evident in both historical trends in the stock market as well as the macroeconomic data leading into the crash. They were perpetuated by investors, mortgage brokers, and banks taking on an abnormal amount of risk in the early 2000s for both psychological and behavioral reasons. These causes, while less than obvious at the time, have, with …