Published in:MPI Collective Goods Discussion Paper ; No. 2019/7
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource (38 p)
Language:
English
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.3382275
Identifier:
Origination:
Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments May 2019 erstellt
Description:
A pervasive feature in the finance industry is relative performance, which can include extrinsic (money), intrinsic (self-image), and reputational (status) motives. In this paper, we model a portfolio decision with two assets and investigate how reputational motives (i.e., the public announcement of the winners or losers) influence risk-taking in investment decisions vis-a-vis intrinsic motives. We test our hypotheses experimentally with 864 students and 330 financial professionals. We find that reputational motives play a minor role among financial professionals, as the risk-taking of underperformers is already increased due to intrinsic motives. Student behavior, however, is mainly driven by reputational motives with risk-taking levels that come close to those of professionals when winners or losers are announced publicly. This indicates that professionals show higher levels of intrinsic (self-image) incentives to outperform others compared to non-professionals (students), but a similar behavior can be sparked among the latter by adding reputational incentives