题　目：Investing under Complexity: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

嘉　宾：吕漪清 助理教授 上海纽约大学

主持人：张大可 助理教授 上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院

时　间：2025年10月22日（周三）13:30-15:00

地　点：上海交通大学 徐汇校区安泰浩然楼306

内容简介:

This paper examines how complexity affects investment decisions of retail mutual fund investors. We develop a novel empirical approach to separate complexity’s effect from beliefs and risk preferences. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, we first identify a zero-crossing jump—discontinuity in purchase probability following a small asset price change—which cannot be reconciled with a belief channel. We then show that complexity amplifies this heuristic, particularly for larger consideration sets, less concentrated portfolios, uncertain environments, volatile assets, and less-educated investors. Analyzing browsing behavior, we find that greater cognitive effort amplifies the zero-crossing jump in purchase decisions, suggesting that complexity, rather than a lack of cognitive effort, drives decision errors. Finally, we find that buy decisions are more subject to complexity than sell decisions. These findings underscore the need to incorporate complexity into models of risky decision-making and asset demand elasticity.

演讲人简介：

吕漪清，现任上海纽约大学助理教授，博士毕业于伦敦政治经济学院。其研究领域涵盖公司治理与家庭金融，重点关注房地产市场与金融科技平台的应用。相关成果已发表于 Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis、Management Science、Journal of Corporate Finance、Economics Letters 等核心金融与经济学期刊。目前的研究主要聚焦于有限注意力如何影响个体的投资与消费决策。

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