Saba Sehrish

Citation

Thesis Title
Essays on Gender and Investment Decisions

Personality traits, including gender, influence investment managers’ decisions. Considering the limited and contradictory arguments about gender’s impact on financial decisions, Ms Sehrish investigated gender differences in the investment preferences of highly experienced professionals. She found that, relative to males, female top executives of U.S. firms suffered greater losses from insider trades induced by prospect theory value (where perceived gains are valued more than perceived losses). In addition, female mutual fund managers strongly preferred allocating assets into liquid stocks and were less active in managing their funds. Her findings were attributable to females’ limited access to material information, their inclination toward price-efficient stocks, and the collective self-construal of female professionals. Ms Sehrish’s results showed that the investment decisions of female professionals were safer, especially for risk-averse investors.

Supervisors
Professor David Ding
Professor Nuttawat Visaltanachoti