Confidence, Opinions of Market Efficiency, and Investment Behavior of Finance Professors

Abstract

This paper examines finance professors' collective opinion on the efficiency of US stock markets and whether their views on the markets' efficiency influence their investing behavior. We survey close to 4,000 professors, with an 18% response rate and find that most professors tend to believe US stock markets are weak to semi-strong efficient. Interestingly, their individual views on efficiency are not related to their trading behavior. The primary driver of a finance professor's propensity to actively invest is one's confidence in his own abilities to beat the market, regardless of his opinion of the efficiency of the US stock market.

Keywords: Market Efficiency, Investor Confidence, Investment Decisions, Behavioral Finance

JEL Classification: G11, G14