The efficient markets hypothesis has been the central proposition in finance for nearly thirty years. It states that securities prices in financial markets must equal fundamental values, either because all investors are rational or because arbitrage eliminates pricing anomalies. This book describes an alternative approach to the study of financial markets: behavioral finance. This approach starts with an observation that the assumptions of investor rationality and perfect arbitrage are overwhelmingly contradicted by both psychological and institutional evidence. In actual financial markets, less than fully rational investors trade against arbitrageurs whose resources are limited by risk aversion, short horizons, and agency problems. The book presents and empirically evaluates models of such inefficient markets. Behavioral finance models both explain the available financial data better than does the efficient markets hypothesis and generate new empirical predictions. These models can account for such anomalies as the superior performance of value stocks, the closed end fund puzzle, the high returns on stocks included in market indices, the persistence of stock price bubbles, and even the collapse of several well-known hedge funds in 1998. By summarizing and expanding the research in behavioral finance, the book builds a new theoretical and empirical foundation for the economic analysis of real-world markets.

安德瑞·史萊佛(Andrei Shleifer)，哈佛大學經濟係教授，1999年美國經濟學會剋拉剋奬獲得者， 是美國經濟金融學界年輕一代經濟學傢中非常齣爭的代錶人物之一。1982年在哈佛大學獲得數學學士學位，1986年在MIT獲得經濟博士學位。先後在普林斯頓大學、芝加哥大學擔任過助理教授和教授。1991年迴到哈佛大學經濟係。非有效市場理論是他獲得剋拉剋奬的主要貢獻之一。史萊佛教授不僅在哈佛講授行為金融學，而且講授政治經濟學、經濟學的心理學分析，他的研究涉及公司財務、行為金融、金融監管、轉型經濟學、法律和經濟學以及製度理論等方方麵麵。