Rankings and Risk‐Taking in the Finance Industry

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Finance
Year: 2018
Volume: 73
Issue: 5
Pages: 2271-2302

Authors (3)

Score contribution per author:

1.341 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Rankings are omnipresent in the finance industry, yet the literature is silent on how they impact financial professionals' behavior. Using lab‐in‐the‐field experiments with 657 professionals and lab experiments with 432 students, we investigate how rank incentives affect investment decisions. We find that both rank and tournament incentives increase risk‐taking among underperforming professionals, while only tournament incentives affect students. This rank effect is robust to the experimental frame (investment frame vs. abstract frame), to payoff consequences (own return vs. family return), to social identity priming (private identity vs. professional identity), and to professionals' gender (no gender differences among professionals).

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:bla:jfinan:v:73:y:2018:i:5:p:2271-2302
Journal Field
Finance
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25