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Following The Herd: An Economic Analysis Of The Effects Of Herd Mentality On The U.S. Housing Bubble, Michael P. Spicer

Honors Theses

One focus of economics in the recent years has been the integration of human behavior, including that of herd behavior, into economic thought. Herd behavior can be defined as the way that individuals, who have private information, end up acting together as a group inadvertently, without planned action. It is thought to be caused by incomplete information and subsequently information cascades. Does this behavior exist, and if it does, did it have any effect on the recent housing market? The last twelve years provide a good opportunity to test whether or not herd behavior exists in the housing market, and …