[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2303.14263.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Product Recommendations on Online Investor Behaviors

Author

Listed:
  • Ruiqi Rich Zhu
  • Cheng He
  • Yu Jeffrey Hu
Abstract
Despite the popularity of product recommendations on online investment platforms, few studies have explored their impact on investor behaviors. Using data from a global e-commerce platform, we apply regression discontinuity design to causally examine the effects of product recommendations on online investors' mutual fund investments. Our findings indicate that recommended funds experience a significant rise in purchases, especially among low socioeconomic status investors who are most influenced by these recommendations. However, investors tend to suffer significantly worse investment returns after purchasing recommended funds, and this negative impact is also most significant for investors with low socioeconomic status. To explain this disparity, we find investors tend to gather less information and expend reduced effort in fund research when buying recommended funds. Furthermore, investors' redemption timing of recommended funds is less optimal than non-recommended funds. We also find that recommended funds experience a larger return reversal than non-recommended funds. In conclusion, product recommendations make investors behave more irrationally and these negative consequences are most significant for investors with low socioeconomic status, which can amplify wealth inequality among investors in financial markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruiqi Rich Zhu & Cheng He & Yu Jeffrey Hu, 2023. "The Effect of Product Recommendations on Online Investor Behaviors," Papers 2303.14263, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2303.14263
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.14263
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon Cookson & Tim Jenkinson & Howard Jones & Jose Vicente Martinez, 2021. "Best Buys and Own Brands: Investment Platforms’ Recommendations of Mutual Funds [Understanding the advice of commissions-motivated agents: Evidence from the Indian life insurance market]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(1), pages 227-263.
    2. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    3. Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik, 2022. "Regression Discontinuity Designs," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 821-851, August.
    4. Sylvain Benoit & Jean-Edouard Colliard & Christophe Hurlin & Christophe Pérignon, 2017. "Where the Risks Lie: A Survey on Systemic Risk," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 109-152.
    5. Atkins, Allen B. & Dyl, Edward A., 1990. "Price Reversals, Bid-Ask Spreads, and Market Efficiency," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(4), pages 535-547, December.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1589-1622 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Anders Anderson, 2013. "Trading and Under-Diversification," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(5), pages 1699-1741.
    8. Marshall Van Alstyne & Erik Brynjolfsson, 2005. "Global Village or Cyber-Balkans? Modeling and Measuring the Integration of Electronic Communities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(6), pages 851-868, June.
    9. Prabuddha De & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Mohammad S. Rahman, 2010. "Technology Usage and Online Sales: An Empirical Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 1930-1945, November.
    10. Yi Zhao & Sha Yang & Vishal Narayan & Ying Zhao, 2013. "Modeling Consumer Learning from Online Product Reviews," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 153-169, May.
    11. Wei Huang & Qianqiu Liu & S. Ghon Rhee & Liang Zhang, 2010. "Return Reversals, Idiosyncratic Risk, and Expected Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 147-168, January.
    12. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    13. Gediminas Adomavicius & Jesse C. Bockstedt & Shawn P. Curley & Jingjing Zhangc, 2018. "Effects of Online Recommendations on Consumers’ Willingness to Pay," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 84-102, March.
    14. Prem C. Jain & Joanna Shuang Wu, 2000. "Truth in Mutual Fund Advertising: Evidence on Future Performance and Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 937-958, April.
    15. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Measuring the Financial Sophistication of Households," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 393-398, May.
    16. Gordon Cookson & Tim Jenkinson & Howard Jones & Jose Vicente Martinez & Itay Goldstein, 2021. "Best Buys and Own Brands: Investment Platforms’ Recommendations of Mutual Funds," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 227-263.
    17. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    18. Erik Brynjolfsson & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Duncan Simester, 2011. "Goodbye Pareto Principle, Hello Long Tail: The Effect of Search Costs on the Concentration of Product Sales," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1373-1386, August.
    19. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    20. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    21. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    22. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    23. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2002. "Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 455-488, March.
    24. Sylvain Benoit & Jean-Edouard Colliard & Christophe Hurlin & Christophe Pérignon, 2017. "Where the Risks Lie: A Survey on Systemic Risk," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 109-152.
    25. Dokyun Lee & Kartik Hosanagar, 2021. "How Do Product Attributes and Reviews Moderate the Impact of Recommender Systems Through Purchase Stages?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 524-546, January.
    26. Matias D. Cattaneo & Luke Keele & Rocio Titiunik, 2021. "Covariate Adjustment in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Papers 2110.08410, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    27. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    28. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1259-1294 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Mark Grinblatt & Seppo Ikäheimo & Matti Keloharju & Samuli Knüpfer, 2016. "IQ and Mutual Fund Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 924-944, April.
    30. Gediminas Adomavicius & Jesse C. Bockstedt & Shawn P. Curley & Jingjing Zhang, 2013. "Do Recommender Systems Manipulate Consumer Preferences? A Study of Anchoring Effects," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 956-975, December.
    31. Hailiang Chen & Prabuddha De & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, 2014. "Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(5), pages 1367-1403.
    32. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean & Lu Zheng, 2005. "Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Effects of Expenses on Mutual Fund Flows," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2095-2120, November.
    33. Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Post, Thomas, 2016. "How does investor confidence lead to trading? Linking investor return experiences, confidence, and investment beliefs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 65-78.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tekçe, Bülent & Yılmaz, Neslihan & Bildik, Recep, 2016. "What factors affect behavioral biases? Evidence from Turkish individual stock investors," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 515-526.
    2. Maximilian Koestner & Benjamin Loos & Steffen Meyer & Andreas Hackethal, 2017. "Do individual investors learn from their mistakes?," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 669-703, July.
    3. Aman, Hiroyuki & Motonishi, Taizo & Ogawa, Kazuhito & Omori, Kozo, 2024. "The effect of financial literacy on long-term recognition and short-term trade in mutual funds: Evidence from Japan," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 762-783.
    4. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    5. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    6. Manuel Ammann & Nic Schaub, 2021. "Do Individual Investors Trade on Investment-Related Internet Postings?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5679-5702, September.
    7. Pereira Reichhardt, Joaquín & Iqbal, Tabassum, 2014. "Investment Decisions: Are we fully-Rational?," MPRA Paper 57686, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Joshua Traut, 2023. "What we know about the low-risk anomaly: a literature review," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 37(3), pages 297-324, September.
    9. Grinblatt, Mark & Keloharju, Matti & Linnainmaa, Juhani T., 2012. "IQ, trading behavior, and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 339-362.
    10. Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Shefrin, Hersh, 2014. "Technical analysis and individual investors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 487-511.
    11. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, December.
    12. Xitong Li & Jörn Grahl & Oliver Hinz, 2022. "How Do Recommender Systems Lead to Consumer Purchases? A Causal Mediation Analysis of a Field Experiment," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 620-637, June.
    13. Jiao, Peiran & Veiga, André & Walther, Ansgar, 2020. "Social media, news media and the stock market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 63-90.
    14. Kaniel, Ron & Parham, Robert, 2017. "WSJ Category Kings – The impact of media attention on consumer and mutual fund investment decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 337-356.
    15. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    16. Orhan ERDEM & Evren ARIK & Serkan YÜKSEL, 2014. "Trading Puzzle, Puzzling Trade," Iktisat Isletme ve Finans, Bilgesel Yayincilik, vol. 29(345), pages 83-102.
    17. Leif Brandes & Katja Rost, 2009. "Media, Limited Attention and the Propensity of Individuals to Buy Stocks," Working Papers 0098, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU), revised Sep 2009.
    18. Merkle, Christoph, 2017. "Financial overconfidence over time: Foresight, hindsight, and insight of investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 68-87.
    19. George J. Jiang & H. Zafer Yüksel, 2019. "Sentimental mutual fund flows," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 709-738, November.
    20. Prajwal Eachempati & Praveen Ranjan Srivastava, 2021. "Accounting for unadjusted news sentiment for asset pricing," Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 13(3), pages 383-422, May.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2303.14263. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.