Motives for delegating financial decisions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Freer, Mikhail; Friedman, Daniel; Weidenholzer, Simon
• 署名单位: University of Essex; University of Barcelona; University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2026.05.012
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: imitation; attitudes; oligopoly; EVOLUTION; belief; Blame; RISK

摘要

Why do some investors delegate financial decisions to supposed experts? We report an on-line experiment designed to disentangle four possible motives. About 800 investors drawn from the Prolific subject pool choose whether or not to delegate a real-stakes choice among lotteries to a previous investor (a designee) after seeing information on the performance of several available designees. We find that a surprisingly large fraction of investors delegate even trivial choice tasks, suggesting a major role for blame shifting motives. A larger fraction of investors delegate our more complex tasks, suggesting that decision costs play a role for some investors. Some investors who delegate choose a low quality designee with high earnings, suggesting a role for chasing past performance. We find no evidence for a fourth possible motive, that delegation makes risk more acceptable.