Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T23:48:26.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Financial alchemists and financial shamans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2018

Samuel G. B. Johnson
Samuel G. B. Johnson*
Affiliation:
Division of Marketing, Business and Society, University of Bath School of Management, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom. [email protected]://www.sgbjohnson.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Professional money management appears to require little skill, yet its practitioners command astronomical salaries. Singh's theory of shamanism provides one possible explanation: Financial professionals are the shamans of the global economy. They cultivate the perception of superhuman traits, maintain grueling initiation rituals, and rely on esoteric divination rituals. An anthropological view of markets can usefully supplement economic and psychological approaches.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e78
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreassen, P. B. (1990) Judgmental extrapolation and market overreaction: On the use and disuse of news. Journal of Behavioral Decision-Making 3:153–74.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, L. J. & Chapman, J. P. (1969) Illusory correlation as an obstacle to the use of valid psychodiagnostic signs. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 7:271–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fama, E. F. (1970) Efficient capital markets: A review of theory and empirical work. The Journal of Finance 2:383–417.Google Scholar
Gregory, D. W. (2014) Unmasking financial psychopaths: Inside the minds of investors in the twenty-first century. Palgrave-Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. (1989) The pretence of knowledge. American Economic Review 7:3–7.Google Scholar
Hewlett, S. A. & Luce, C. B. (2006) Extreme jobs: The dangerous allure of the 70-hour workweek. Harvard Business Review 8:49–59.Google Scholar
Jensen, M. (1968) The performance of mutual funds in the period 1945–64. Journal of Finance 2:389–416.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. G. B. & Hill, F. (2017) Belief digitization in economic prediction. In: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX, ed. Gunzelmann, G., Howes, A., Tenbrink, T. & Davelaar, E. J., pp. 2313–19. Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. G. B., Jin, A. & Keil, F. C. (2014) Simplicity and goodness-of-fit in explanation: The case of intuitive curve-fitting. In: Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX, ed. Bello, P., Guarini, M., McShane, M. & Scassellati, B., pp. 701–706. Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. G. B., Matiashvili, T. & Tuckett, D. (2017) Expectations based on past price patterns: An experimental study. Working paper.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. G. B. & Tuckett, D. (2017) Narrative decision-making in investment choices: How investors use news about company performance. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3037463.Google Scholar
Knight, F. H. (1921) Risk, uncertainty, and profit. Hart, Schaffner & Marx.Google Scholar
Malkiel, B. G. (1995) Returns from investing in equity mutual funds 1971 to 1991. Journal of Finance 5:549–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malkiel, B. G. (2015) A random walk down Wall Street: The time-tested strategy for successful investing, 11th edition. W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Marriage, M. (2016) Passive funds take third of US market. Financial Times, Sept. 11. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/4cdf2f88-7695-11e6-b60a-de4532d5ea35.Google Scholar
Murphy, J. J. (1999) Technical analysis of the financial markets: A comprehensive guide to trading methods and applications. Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Peterson-Withorn, C. (2016) How billionaires get rich: Which industries make the most mega-fortunes? Forbes, Mar. 7. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2016/03/07/how-billionaires-get-rich-which-industries-make-the-most-mega-fortunes/.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1997) How the mind works. W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. A. (1942) Capitalism, socialism, and democracy. Harper.Google Scholar
Taleb, N. N. (2001) Fooled by randomness: The hidden role of chance in life and in the markets. Random House.Google Scholar
Tuckett, D. (2011) Minding the markets: An emotional finance view of financial instability. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tuckett, D. & Nikolic, M. (2017) The role of conviction and narrative in decision making under radical uncertainty. Theory & Psychology 2:501–23.Google Scholar
Wermers, R. (2011) Performance measurement of mutual funds, hedge funds, and institutional accounts. Annual Review of Financial Economics 3:537–74.Google Scholar