Behavioral finance applies systematic analysis to ideas that have long existed in the world of trading and investing. However, it is important to realize that we are still at a very early stage of research into this discipline and have much to learn. In Behavioral Finance: Understanding the Social, Cognitive, and Economic Debates, Edwin Burton and Sunit Shah put behavioral finance under the microscope to help you gain a better understanding of the various aspects of this subset of behavioral economics.

Engaging and informative, this timely guide contains valuable insights into various issues surrounding behavioral finance. Burton and Shah examine the psychological research pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky—including anomalies such as consumer choice with certainity and uncertainity, perception biases, and reading into randomness—that underlies behavior in financial markets. They discuss the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), summarize its history, and present the background of the emergence of behavioral finance. The book also explores the key components of Shleifer's model of noise trading and explains the importance of this model in the larger context of behavioral finance. Burton and Shah include essential information on noise traders and the law of one price as well as the case of fungibility. The book also contains an exploration of noise trading feedback models such as the Hirshleifer model.

Further, Behavioral Finance reviews serial correlation patterns in stock price data from the perspective of experts such as DeBondt and Thaler. The book puts the Capital Asset Pricing Model to the test and reveals why Fama-French is a milestone for behavioral finance. Along the way, Burton and Shah share their own views on this important area of finance and shed some much needed light on the subject.