Daniel Fonseca Costa

Bibliometric analysis on the association between behavioral finance and decision making with cognitive biases such as overconfidence, anchoring effect and confirmation bias

The aim of the present study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis on the association between the themes ‘behavioral finance’ and ‘financial and managerial decision making’, and the cognitive biases ‘overconfidence’, ‘anchoring effect’ and ‘confirmation bias’. The search for articles was performed at the Web of Science database using EndNote® as reference management software, and CiteSpace (Chen in Proc Natl Acad Sci 101(suppl 1):5303–5310, 2004; J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 57(3):359–377, 2006) as bibliometric analysis software. The search led to 889 articles published between 1990 and 2016, and the results have shown that the number of researches relating overconfidence, anchoring and confirmation biases to behavioral finances has been growing throughout time, mainly from 2008 on. Besides, the results have confirmed the importance of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman to this research field. The bias presenting the closest proximity to the behavioral finance field in the present study was overconfidence. The confirmation bias was the one presenting the smallest number of publications and the slightest relation to this study field, fact that opens a promising research field.

BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS AND BEHAVIORAL FINANCE: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE SCIENTIFIC FIELDS: BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS AND BEHAVIORAL FINANCE

The aim of the study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the scientific field of Behavioral Economics and Behavioral Finance. The research was conducted using the Web of Science database, which returned 2617 articles, revealing that the amount of research within these fields has grown over time. Furthermore, the results also prove the relevance of the works of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky for the field of Behavioral Economics and Finance, and Steven Hursh to Behavioral Economics. It is still possible to note that the field of Behavioral Economics encompasses subjects that connect human behavior with demand, consumption and price, with investments and with managerial decisions, as well as with the role played by heuristics and cognitive biases in decision‐making processes. In turn, the field of Behavioral Finance is more focused on the study of errors of judgment and of decision‐making characteristics in financial investments. Additionally, it is inferred that the field of Behavioral Economics is more wide‐ranging than the field of Behavioral Finance, as the latter is a byproduct of Behavioral Economics. Finally, a conclusion is then reached, demonstrating that the fields of Behavioral Economics and Finance have turned into an important field of study.