Law Commons^™

Behavioral Economics And Investor Protection: Reasonable Investors, Efficient Markets, Barbara Black

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The judicial view of a “reasonable investor” plays an important role in federal securities regulation, and courts express great confidence in the reasonable investor’s cognitive abilities. Behavioral economists, by contrast, do not observe real people investing in today’s markets behaving as the reasonable investors that federal securities law expects them to be. Similarly, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has exerted a powerful influence in securities regulation, although empirical evidence calls into question some of the basic assumptions underlying EMH. Unfortunately, to date, courts have only acknowledged the discrepancy between legal theory and behavioral economics in one situation, class certification of …

Can Behavioral Economics Inform Our Understanding Of Securities Arbitration, Barbara Black

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate over FINRA arbitration by invoking behavioral economics principles to understand why PDAAs in securities arbitration continue to resist powerful market and political forces calling for their elimination.

Part II of the paper sets forth background information to put the issue in context. It first describes several important distinctions between securities arbitration and other forms of consumer arbitration. It next summarizes pertinent economic theory, first classical economic theory in support of PDAAs and then behavioral economics principles that challenge the classical approach.

Part III poses three questions regarding the staying power of PDAAs and …