Review of Shleifer's Inefficient Markets

摘要

RESEARCH IN behavioral finance has grown explosively in recent years. Finance groups are targeting hiring positions specifically for behavioralists, new classes in behavioral finance are being developed and taught, and, as perhaps the strongest sign of the growing prominence of the area, many researchers now identify their primary field as "behavioral finance." The prevalence of behavioral ideas in finance is so widespread that it is hardly controversial when the abstract to a recent survey paper on behavioral finance proclaims: "The basic paradigm of asset pricing is in flux. The purely rational approach is being subsumed by a broader approach based upon psychology of investors" (David Hirshleifer 2001). In his book, Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance, Andrei Shleifer provides the reader with a clear introduction to, and a powerful advocacy of, the field of behavioral finance. The book does a great job motivating and defending this work in a manner that is accessible to the newcomer to this field and at the same time is insightful and interesting to the behavioral specialist.