Investor Behaviour in the Age of Fintech: Crowdfunding, Copy Trading and Robo-Advisors

金融科技(金融科技)描述了一个相当新的现象，即技术创新被用来提供或改善金融服务，如银行、零售投资或借贷。虽然金融科技可以使金融服务的提供比以前更有效率，但它也可以考虑到以前不可行或成本太高的新可能性。这个项目将聚焦于三种形式的金融科技：众筹、社交交易和机器人顾问。众筹是指大量个人通过互联网向其他个人、团体、组织或公司提供资金，通常是通过提供贷款或出售企业股份的方式。在过去的几年里，众筹的数量以每年100%以上的速度增长(Massolution 2015)。在初创企业领域，它已经被一些人视为最重要的外部资金来源。令人费解的是，众筹是一种新的投资机会，但可以说，传统投资至少在风险和回报方面也一样好。例如，股票往往提供更高的预期回报，政府债券更容易兑现，银行存款更安全。然而，众筹增长率表明，它给储户带来了他们从传统投资中得不到的东西。项目1和2将调查众筹者的动机：他们为什么投资众筹，在他们看来，相对于传统投资的优势是什么？项目2调查了一个特定的动机，即众筹项目是否发挥了积极的社会或环境影响，或者是否只有金融风险和回报考虑发挥了作用。我们研究项目的另一个重点是了解金融科技的这些创新如何导致决策和结果的不同；项目3调查投资者是否存在消费偏好投资偏差，即他们投资于他们喜欢的产品但不一定是大多数消费者喜欢的产品的公司。如果是这样的话，众筹可能比风险资本融资提供更好的资本配置，在众筹中，许多投资者独立决定为哪些公司提供资金，而在风险资本融资中，只有少数大投资者决定。因此，众筹可能会使初创企业融资决策民主化，并改善福利，因为投资进入了正确的公司，但目前还没有关于这一假设的经验证据。项目4和项目5研究复制交易，在这种交易中，一些投资者可以复制其他(历史上成功的)交易者的交易。之前的研究表明，复制交易会导致风险更高的投资选择，但人们为什么选择复制他人并不清楚；项目4解决了这个问题。项目5问的是，被复制的知识或获得的回报是否改变了被复制者的投资行为，以及为什么。如果是这样的话，复制交易可能会降低复制交易者的福利，因为他们比其他情况下冒更大的风险。因此，我们的研究对希望保护消费者的监管机构以及希望保护客户以留住客户的交易平台具有一定的影响。最后，项目6调查了机器人建议，这是一种基于投资者偏好推荐投资和投资组合的算法。从历史上看，财富管理公司也有类似的目的，然而，他们只会向相对富裕的客户提供服务，而机器人顾问可以降低成本，因此更容易接触到。主要问题是，机器人顾问的哪些特点导致它们被接受/采用，以及哪种散户投资者采用它们。一个主要的福利问题是，机器人咨询是否会带来更好的投资决策(例如，更多的多元化，更少的投资偏见)。

Fintech (financial technology) describes a fairly recent phenomenon, where technological innovation is used to provide or improve financial services such as banking, retail investment, or borrowing. While Fintech can make the provision of financial services more efficient than before, it can also allow for new possibilities that were infeasible or too costly before. This project will focus on three forms of Fintech: crowdfunding, social trading, and robo-advising. Crowdfunding is the provision of funds by a large number of individuals to other individuals, groups, organisations or firms via the internet, typically by providing loans or selling shares of a business. For the past few years, the volume of crowdfunding grew by more than 100% annually (Massolution 2015). In the start-up sector, it is already seen by some as the most important external funding source. What is puzzling is that crowdfunding is a new investment opportunity, but arguably conventional investments are at least as good in terms of risk and return profile. For example, stocks tend to provide a higher expected return, government bonds can be cashed in more easily, and bank deposits are safer. Yet the crowdfunding growth rates indicate that it gives savers something that they do not get from conventional investments. Projects 1 and 2 will investigate the motivations of crowdfunders: Why do they invest in crowdfunding, and what in their view is the advantage over conventional investments? Project 2 investigates a specific motivation, whether having a positive social or environmental impact by crowdfunding projects plays a role, or whether only financial risk and return considerations play a role as suggested by conventional finance theory.Another focus of our research projects is to understand how decisions and outcomes differ because of these Fintech innovations; project 3 investigates whether investors suffer from a consumption-preference investment bias, where they invest in firms whose products they like but not necessarily those whose products are liked by the majority of consumers. If this is the case, then crowdfunding, where many investors decide independently which firms to fund, might provide a better capital allocation than e.g. venture capital financing, where only a few large investors decide. Hence, crowdfunding might democratise start-up funding decisions and improve welfare because investments go into the right firms, but there is no empirical evidence about this hypothesis yet.Projects 4 and 5 investigate copy trading, where some investors can copy the trades of other (historically successful) traders. Previous research has shown that copy trading leads to more risky investment choices, but it is not clear why people choose to copy others; project 4 addresses this question. Project 5 asks whether the knowledge of being copied, or the rewards given for it, changes the investment behaviour of those being copied, and why. If this is the case, then copy trading might reduce welfare among copy traders because they risk their savings to a greater degree than they otherwise would. Thus, our research has implications for regulators who want to protect consumers, and for trading platforms who might want to protect their customers in order to retain them.Finally, project 6 investigates robo-advising, which are algorithms that recommend investments and portfolios based on investor preferences. Historically, a similar purpose was served by wealth managers, who, however, would only offer their services to relatively wealthy clients, whereas robo-advisers can reduce costs and are therefore more easily accessible. The main questions are which characteristics of robo-advisers lead to them being accepted/adopted, and which kind of retail investors adopt them. A major welfare question is whether robo-advising leads to better investment decisions (e.g., more diversification, fewer investment biases).