Introduction to Behavioral Finance

Course Description

The main goal of the course is to provide students with a broad idea of the ways in which psychological biases and heuristics influence our financial decisions.

The course will focus on the biases and heuristics that have been documented in the behavioral literature. Students will relate these biases to news and to contemporary economic events. Students will thus read financial and economic news, as well as the main takeaways of research and experiments conducted by academics.

By taking this course students will be able to reflect upon their own mindsets and to determine the perils that everyone faces when making a financial decision. In particular, they will be able to enhance their decision making by de-biasing some situations they face.

Prerequisites: This course will be open to all students, and no prior knowledge is required. However, a high level of reading comprehension is expected, and some basic training in mathematics is expected as well.