• C++ Programming for Financial Engineering
    Highly recommended by thousands of MFE students. Covers essential C++ topics with applications to financial engineering. Learn more Join!
    Python for Finance with Intro to Data Science
    Gain practical understanding of Python to read, understand, and write professional Python code for your first day on the job. Learn more Join!
    An Intuition-Based Options Primer for FE
    Ideal for entry level positions interviews and graduate studies, specializing in options trading arbitrage and options valuation models. Learn more Join!

Quant Programmes with solid bases in Behavioural Finance

Joined
8/15/14
Messages
2
Points
11
Greetings,

Lately I've been thinking on joining a good quant programme. Looking at Quant.net's list I see that CMU, Princeton, Columbia, Baruch and Berkeley are amongst the best options, all of them having their respective strengths and weaknesses, depending on what exactly you want to do and where exactly you want to work.

Recently I've noticed an increasing interest in behavioural finance - I just learned there was even a new field called "Quantitative Behavioural Finance" - so, I was wondering if any of those programmes had strong bases on this particular field.

I've checked some of those programmes curriculum and I've noticed not all of them have a course on Behavioural Finance - or, at least, not specifically named that way. For example, neither CMU or Princeton have a specific course for Behavioural Finance, but Baruch does have one course named "Behavioral Finance".

Of course, perhaps, in the other programmes there might not be a course named "Behavioral Finance" as in Baruch, but maybe that topic is covered all over the programme. And that's my inquiry. How solid are any of these programmes (or any other that might be good) in terms of behavioural finance?

Thanks in advance.
 
Princeton does have a behavioral finance course. Look here:
http://www.princeton.edu/bcf/graduate/elective/

FIN 568: Behavioral Finance

Traditional economics and finance typically use the simple "rational actor" model, where people perfectly maximize, and efficient financial markets. We will present models that are psychologically more realistic than this standard model. About 30% of the course will be devoted to economics, 70% to finance. Applications to economics will include decision theory, happiness, fairness, and neuroeconomics. Applications to finance will include theory and evidence on investor psychology, predictability of the stock market and other markets, limits to arbitrage, bubbles and crashes, experimental finance, and behavioral corporate finance

Sample reading list:
Andrei Shleifler (2000)
, Inefficient Capital Markets: An Intro to Behavioral Finance
Richard Thaler, The Winner's Curve: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life


Also at Berkeley:
Topics in Behavioral Finance
MFE 230T (1 unit)
This course covers elements of behavioral
decision theory and its implication
in financial markets. Focus is on the
psychological processes by which people
make judgments and decisions, and the
heuristics and biases associated with these
decisions.


At Columbia:
IEORE4712 Behavioral Finance 3 pts.

Refer to course syllabus. Fall: Behaviorial Finance, taught by Professor X. He. Behavioral finance is the application of behavioral psychology to financial decision making. This course focuses on the portfolio choice aspect of behavioral finance, and briefly touches others. Compared with the classical theory of portfolio choice, behavioral portfolio choice features human being's psychological biases. It builds both on behavioral preference structures different from mean variance theory and expected utility theory and on systematic biases against rational beliefs such as Bayesian rule.
 
Last edited:
Behavioral finance is a sideline for quant programs. Your utility function for quant programs needs some serious tuning if that is a big factor in your decision.
 
are you looking to do research in behavioral finance or just coursework?
 
Princeton does have a behavioral finance course. Look here:
http://www.princeton.edu/bcf/graduate/elective/
My bad. I only looked at core courses, since I was expecting an actual focus on behavioural finance. Thank you.

Behavioral finance is a sideline for quant programs. Your utility function for quant programs needs some serious tuning if that is a big factor in your decision.
Don't get me wrong, it isn't an important factor.
If there was some X programme that had big focus on both financial engineering and behavioural finance, I would still pick CMU or Princeton over that one.
I was looking at behavioural finance as a bonus, rather than a main factor in my decision.

are you looking to do research in behavioral finance or just coursework?
Both interest me, actually. However, as I told Yike Lu, my main focus still is Financial Engineering.
I was wondering if one of the Top 5 or Top 10 programmes for Financial Engineering had a significant focus on Behavioural Finance, so that it could give me an edge.
 
Don't get me wrong, it isn't an important factor.
If there was some X programme that had big focus on both financial engineering and behavioural finance, I would still pick CMU or Princeton over that one.
I was looking at behavioural finance as a bonus, rather than a main factor in my decision.
I see -- it's a splitting hairs factor to let you decide between top programs. Again, I don't think any QF program will have a focus, there may be one or two courses, but beyond that you'd have to check the school itself.
 
Back
Top