Yong Kyu Gam , Andy Kim Young Han , Junho Park , Hojong Shin
{"title":"Do aggressive CFOs borrow short-term?","authors":"Yong Kyu Gam , Andy Kim Young Han , Junho Park , Hojong Shin","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101121","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101121","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study whether CFOs’ psychological traits affect debt maturity choices. Using facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a proxy for achievement drive, we measure 2494 CFOs and 2408 CEOs from 1992 to 2020. Higher-CFO fWHR predicts significantly shorter debt maturity with larger number of lead managers in syndicated loans, while CEO fWHR has no effect. The relationship is strongest when rollover risk is high and is confirmed in loan-level analyses and survives difference-in-differences test around CFO turnovers. Short-term borrowing by high-fWHR CFOs is not value-destroying: markets react positively, distress risk declines, and these CFOs are more often promoted externally to CEO.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101121"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145977827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Where is the risk? How cryptocurrency investment relates to undesirable financial behaviors","authors":"Zefeng Bai , Pengcheng Wang , Botong Xue","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101149","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101149","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates how cryptocurrency investment is associated with three undesirable financial behaviors: late mortgage payment, credit card misuse, and retirement borrowing. Drawing on Behavioral Portfolio Theory (BPT), we propose that cryptocurrency’s unique features encourage a “mental account invasion”, where investors engage in behaviors that build the aspirational layer at the expense of the protection layer. Utilizing 2018 and 2021 NFCS data, we find that cryptocurrency investment is associated with an increased likelihood of all three undesirable financial behaviors. Findings are robust to propensity score matching (PSM) and an instrumental variable (IV) design. Furthermore, we find that the observed association is more pronounced among social media users. Overall, our paper documents the potential adverse financial outcomes of crypto investments at the consumer behavior level, providing a novel perspective that contrasts with the predominantly optimistic market narrative about digital assets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101149"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146077930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Local corruption and financial regulators’ exit option: A utility approach","authors":"Khanh Hoang","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101140","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101140","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the impact of local corruption on the career decisions of financial regulators, focusing on their choice to exit public service. We develop a novel utility-based model that demonstrates how corruption in local government reduces the utility of remaining in regulatory roles, thereby increasing the likelihood of regulators’ departure. Our empirical analysis, based on a comprehensive dataset of 1914 SEC financial regulators, robustly confirms this relationship. Our findings underscore the importance of institutional quality in retaining skilled regulators essential for effective oversight and public policy implementation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101140"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145926441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mustafa Nourallah , Peter Öhman , Thomas Walther , Duc Khuong Nguyen
{"title":"Financial robo-advisors: A scoping review and future research directions","authors":"Mustafa Nourallah , Peter Öhman , Thomas Walther , Duc Khuong Nguyen","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101158","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101158","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Financial robo-advisors (FRAs) enable households with a limited amount of money to participate in financial markets without time or place constraints. While FRAs can help investors overcome behavioural biases, they also have disadvantages, such as reliance on a limited number of inputs and a lack of individualization. We conduct a scoping literature review of the nascent research on FRAs to synthesize previous research results. We identify two streams of literature: (1) asset management, which focuses on designing FRAs and improving the functioning of these machine advisors, and (2) behavioural finance, which investigates technology adoption and issues concerning biased advice. Among other topics, future research should address why FRAs do not appeal to less financially literate people, who would likely benefit more than others from using them.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101158"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147396467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultural celebrations and investor gambling behavior","authors":"John Hua Fan , Mingyi Li , Xinyu Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101139","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101139","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We document a surge in gambling demand surrounding the Lunar New Year (LNY) period in the Chinese A-share market. Lottery-like stocks significantly outperform non-lottery-like stocks by 4.1 % over the ten trading days following the LNY. These gains gradually diminish over the longer term, consistent with a short-term mispricing effect. This effect is specific to the LNY window and is not observed during other major Chinese holidays or ordinary trading periods. Furthermore, the phenomenon is not driven by state-owned enterprises or Special Treatment (ST) stocks. Overall, our findings suggest that the cultural significance of the Chinese Lunar New Year plays a distinct role in shaping investor gambling demand and asset pricing dynamics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101139"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145977826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Racial differences in expected stock market performance and stock ownership","authors":"Ann Marie Hibbert , Shanxiang Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101133","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101133","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There are significant racial differences in expectations regarding future stock market performance. Using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations from 2013 to 2022, we find that, relative to White Americans, Black and Hispanic Americans have lower probabilistic expectations that the stock market will increase. This racial gap in expectations was even larger during the recession caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, suggesting that economic uncertainty exacerbates this heterogeneity in expectations. Furthermore, we show that relative to White Americans, the likelihood and level of participation of Black and Hispanic Americans in the stock market are significantly more affected by their subjective beliefs about future market prices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101133"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145705725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Building trust in AI-driven venture capital decisions: A comparative study of SHAP and GPT explanations","authors":"Ronald Setty , Yuval Elovici , Dafna Schwartz","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101148","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101148","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Artificial intelligence is widely used in financial services, yet adoption in venture capital (VC) remains limited due to opaque predictive models. This study examines how explanation format and contextual enrichment shape trust in AI-driven venture recommendations. We compare black-box machine learning predictions of startup success with SHAP visualizations and GPT-generated textual summaries, including enriched versions reflecting venture-specific success factors. Two groups participated: VC investors and financial advisors. Explanations significantly increased trust relative to the black-box baseline, with the strongest effects for feature-enriched formats. Technical orientation moderated format preferences, but only once contextual enrichment was present. The study makes three contributions. First, it shows that explanation enrichment is central to trust in VC decision-making. Second, it introduces GPT-generated SHAP summaries as a practical mechanism for explaining model outputs. Third, it empirically links explanation design to trust calibration and cognitive alignment, extending Trust Calibration Models and Cognitive Fit Theory to VC decisions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101148"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146188287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The dynamics of cryptocurrency market from behavioral finance perspective","authors":"Basma Almisshal, Halil İbrahim Bulut","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101126","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101126","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study constructs a Composite Investor Sentiment Index (CIST) integrating six behavioral and market-based proxies to examine how investor sentiment influences cryptocurrency returns and volatility. Using weekly data from March 2018-July 2023, we decompose sentiment into rational and irrational components via ARDL and analyze dynamic effects through VAR and impulse responses. The first principal component explains almost 70 % of total variance. Results show that rational sentiment exerts persistent, long-run effects on returns and volatility, while irrational sentiment causes short-lived volatility spikes. The findings advance behavioral finance by demonstrating that distinguishing cognitive from emotional investor reactions enhances understanding of cryptocurrency market behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"49 ","pages":"Article 101126"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145791513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does CEO accent impact investors’ investment decision?","authors":"Devendra Kale, Anis Triki","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101100","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101100","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We explore the impact of CEO accent on the investment decisions of non-professional investors and the drivers of such investment decisions. Using AI to generate a foreign-sounding (Kenyan) and American accent, we investigate the impact of CEO accent on investors’ investment decisions. We also investigate the moderating impact of CEO reputation. Our results suggest that investors are willing to invest higher amounts in firms led by ‘foreign-sounding’ CEOs when the CEOs have a good reputation. Supplemental analysis shows that the impact of accent on investment is not uniform across different ‘foreign’ accents.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"48 ","pages":"Article 101100"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144989328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ralph C. Verhoeks , Willem F.C. Verschoor , Remco C.J. Zwinkels
{"title":"Investor attention and stock markets dynamics: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Ralph C. Verhoeks , Willem F.C. Verschoor , Remco C.J. Zwinkels","doi":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101116","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101116","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the role of pandemic attention in stock market dynamics during the coronavirus pandemic. We show that the amount of attention paid to pandemic news is an important determinant of market dynamics, <em>beyond</em> health news. We find that pandemic attention asymmetrically influences stock market dynamics during the pandemic by negatively contributing to low returns and positively contributing to high returns. Second, pandemic numbers and news sentiment only affect stock returns if sufficient attention is paid to pandemic news. Third, pandemic attention is positively related to stock market volatility and comovement. Finally, we provide evidence that this higher comovement can be explained by limited attention: pandemic attention comes at the cost of attention paid to firm-specific news because investors apply category learning behavior and prioritize market-wide news.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance","volume":"48 ","pages":"Article 101116"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145267332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}