Trends in Behavioral Finance: A Literature Survey

Abstract

Purpose: The paper aims at systematic and critical evaluation of the research papers for the past 21 years and to analyze the year-wise contribution of different journals and countries’ contributions in the domain of behavioral finance. Methodology: The research was based on searching keywords like behavioral finance, psychological biases, investors’ behavior, behavioral biases, and investors’ decision making in the electronic databases of Emerald, Scopus, and Taylor & Francis Online. The survey covers a period of 21 years from 2000 to 2020 and with a total of 86 articles. Findings: The survey shows that there is an increase in research in this newly emerging field of study. Moreover, there is an upward trend so far as the contribution is concerned by different researchers in this new domain and the maximum contribution is by Indian researchers. Initially, in the early years, researchers focused on the conceptual research paper and systematic review of behavioral finance and later on researchers focused on more empirical research paper evidence to underpin behavioral finance as a separate field of study. Originality: The domain of behavioral finance is in a very nascent stage. The scholars in this domain need a clear view of the direction of research in behavioral finance. This review paper provides a background and evolution of behavioral finance over a period of time and also suggests the prospective future research scope.