Greed and Individual Trading Behavior in Experimental Asset Markets

Abstract

Greed has been shown to be an important economic motive. Both the popular press as well as scientific papers have mentioned questionable practices by greedy bankers and investors as one of the root causes of the 2008 global financial crisis. In spite of these suggestions, there is as of yet no substantive empirical evidence for a contribution of greed to individual trading behavior. This paper presents the result of 15 experimental asset markets in which we test the influence of greed on trading behavior. We do not find empirical support for the idea that greedier investors trade fundamentally different from their less greedy counterparts in markets. These findings shed light on the role of greed in trading and the emergence of asset market bubbles in specific, and of the financial crisis in general. Directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: dispositional greed, experimental finance, experimental asset markets, bubbles, mispricing

JEL Classification: G11, G12, G40, G41