Behavioural Finance: A Review of Major Research Themes and Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

This study explores the bibliometric attributes and reviews the literature in the domain of behavioural finance. Bibliometric analysis is applied to 1,523 articles from peer-reviewed journals of the Scopus database. VOS Viewer is applied for descriptive analyses of leading contributors (authors, sources, countries, and institutions). Biblioshiny and Gephi are used for clustering analysis and PageRank analysis, respectively. Future research directions are suggested based on keyword cooccurrence maps and clustering of recent articles. Five prominent themes in behavioural finance are identified: risk management and portfolio selection, market efficiency and investor behaviour, influence on investor behaviour, behavioural biases, and investor sentiment. In addition to the conceptual structure, the domain’s intellectual and social networks are identified to clarify areas requiring further exploration. This study augments the knowledge of research scholars, finance academics, portfolio consultants, and other stakeholders about the overall structure and topics underpinning the literature.