Newsmakers

Meir Statman, the Glenn Klimek Professor of Finance, was featured in a number of articles sharing his expertise on behavioral finance and discussing the interplay of personal beliefs, emotions, investing, and spending habits.

In a Forbes article which questioned the rationality of spending exorbitant amounts on lavish options-- upscale avocado toast and business class airplane tickets, namely-- Statman asserted that extravagant investments are not inherently wasteful. He argues that an educated individual who evaluates the tradeoffs of their purchase should not necessarily deprive themselves of happiness because of an unreasonably frugal mindset from the past.

Professor Statman was quoted in two different articles for The Wall Street Journal. The first again examined shifting spending habits, this time for retirees becoming increasingly frugal because of a fading confidence in the markets. An article titled “Futuristic Fintech, With a Female Focus” interviewed Statman about the effectiveness of Joy, a financial coaching app, specifically targeted at women, that uses AI to help people better understand their financial spending patterns.

Time Money and Morningstar featured Meir Statman’s own op-ed articles on the appropriate use of emotions when investing and cognitive traps to be wary of when making investment decisions. An excerpt from his piece for Time Money:

In the current second generation of behavioral finance, we are exploring people's nonfinancial desires and acknowledging that they have a legitimate place in our money matters. These wants can include the desire to invest in things that we are comfortable with and that are in line with our principles of social responsibility. We may also want to impress other people or have fun picking stocks.

A portfolio that satisfies such desires can look very different from one constructed solely to deliver the highest expected return for the ups and downs we are willing to stomach.

Learn more about Meir Statman here »