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Project in Behavioural Finance
Last Updated: 2026-02-05 15:35:42
Abstract
In this seminar, students will study cognitive processes, behaviour and the underlying biological response to financial decisions. Research methods such as asset market experiments, lottery games, risk preference assessment, psychometrics, neuroimaging and psychophysiology of decision processes will be discussed. Financial bubbles and crashes will be the core interest.
Objective
This course has four main goals: 1) To learn about the most important topics within Behavioural Finance 2) To learn how to conduct behavioural studies, design experiments, plan data collection and experimental tasks 3) To learn about causes of market crashes, factors that influence them, traders' behaviour before, during and after financial crises 4) To investigate a topic of interest, related to behaviour of traders during market crashes. Additionally, the course gives to the students the opportunity to practice oral presentations, communication skills, report writing and critical thinking.
Content
The course provides an overview of the most important topics in Behavioural Finance. First part of the course involves reading scientific articles, which will be discussed during the seminar. Therefore, attendance is required to pass the course. Each week, a student volunteer will present a paper and the presentation will be followed by a discussion. After obtaining sufficient knowledge of the field, students will select a topic for a behavioural study of their own. The final assignment consists of preparing and conducting a small behavioural study/experiment, analysing the data and presenting the project in the final meeting of the class. Each student will write a scientific report of their study.
Resources
Lecture Notes
Dear Student,Thank you very much for you interest in the course entitled "Project in Behavioral Finance".For a short introduction to Behavioral Finance and Behavioral Economics, I encourage you to watch this 4-minute video by a famous decision scientist Dan Airely:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpMLYh-UIsAIn this course, you will learn the most important topics related to making decisions under risk, impact of emotions, personality and individual differences on important decisions such as investment, managerial decision making, medical decision making etc. Also, you will have the opportunity to practice giving presentations.There is no exam nor compulsory reading in the course. You will learn based on presentations from others and interactive discussions. To successfully complete the course, in a group of 4, you have to do a project and attend the course. The projects will be based on the business cases provided by an industry partner.This semester, the projects will be related to forecasting and improving elicitation of the expert judgment. Expert judgment is a very important topic in various businesses involving high levels of uncertainty, and little data available to generate reliable quantitative predictions.I would like to share a few important pieces of information:- The first class will take place on September 23rd at 4:15 pm. Please, note, that this is in the second week of the semester.- Due to safety measures related to COVID-19 situation, the rooms will only be assigned at the beginning of the semester. You will receive another email informing you about the room.- The first two classes, September 23rd and September 30th will take place at the ETH. The classes from October 7th will take place over ZOOM. Therefore, we will implement hybrid learning.- The class on September 23rd is important. You will learn about the requirements and objectives of the course.- The course will conclude with final presentations of the solutions of the project. We will decide whether this event will take place online or at the ETH. I am very sorry that this is still unclear. This is related to the current uncertain situation related to COVID-19.I hope that you will enjoy the class. If you decide not to attend the class, please sign out of the course the latest by September 30th.I am looking forward to meeting all of you on September 23rd.Kind regards,Sandra Andraszewiczalso on behalf of Daniel Kaszas and Christoph Hölscher
Learning Materials (Links)
- Additional links
- Link to submit final presentations and related documents
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- DS , DR
- Frequency
- Semesterly recurring
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Registration & Places
- Max Places
- 40
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| seminar |
Project in Behavioural Finance
In class teaching on the: 23.09.2020/ 30.09.2020 from 4-6pm. All the other classes will be taught online.
The lecturers will communicate the exact lesson times of ONLINE courses.
|
|
2 h weekly |
Offered In
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GESS Science in Perspective (Only the topics listed in this paragraph can be chosen as GESS Science in Perspective. Further below you will find the "type B courses Reflections about subject specific methods and content" as well as the language courses. 6 ECTS need to be acquired during the BA and 2 ECTS during the MA Students who already took a course within their main study program are NOT allowed to take the course again.)
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Type A: Enhancement of Reflection Competence (Suitable for all students. Students who already took a course within their main study program are NOT allowed to take the course again.)
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Type B: Reflection About Subject-Specific Methods and Contents (Subject-specific courses: Recommended for doctoral, master and bachelor students (after first-year examination only). Students who already took a course within their main study program are NOT allowed to take the course again. These course units are also listed under "Type A", which basically means all students can enroll)
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Doctoral Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (More Information at: )