Psychological and social effects on economic decision-making – gender differences and insights from the COVID-19 pandemic

Du, Mengqiao

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URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-621607
Document Type:	Doctoral dissertation
Year of publication:	2022
Place of publication:	Mannheim
University:	Universität Mannheim
Evaluator:	Niessen-Ruenzi, Alexandra
Date of oral examination:	9 May 2022
Publication language:	English
Institution:	Business School > ABWL u. Corporate Governance (Niessen-Ruenzi 2012-)
Subject:	330 Economics
Keywords (English):	gender inequality , financial intermediation , female role models , occupational choice , behavioral bias
Abstract:	This Ph.D. dissertation consists of three chapters in behavioral finance, financial intermediation, and labor and finance. The first chapter explores the shock of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to study the effect of domestic responsibilities on analyst forecasts and identifies the negative effect of unequal division of housework between gender on female analysts' work. The second chapter uses hand-collected data from Gallup surveys that cover more than 50 years to create a direct measure of counter-stereotypical female role models and shows that admiring counter-stereotypical female role models is associated with better career outcomes in terms of labor market participation and occupational choices. The third chapter analyzes how mutual funds' trading experiences bias their future repurchasing decisions and finds that mutual funds are less likely to repurchase a stock if they previously sold the stock for a loss rather than for a gain. We also find evidence that female fund managers are slightly less likely to suffer from this repurchasing bias.