Mr. Akhil Raju, a PhD Scholar from the School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad (UoH), under the guidance of Prof. Vijaya Bhaskar Marisetty, presented a paper titled “Investors’ Behaviour and Home Bias” at the 16th ISDSI Global Conference 2023 held at IIM Ranchi.
Akhil secured 2nd position in the Best Paper competition and also received a cash prize of Rs.15,000.
Akhil Raju
The paper explores the ongoing debate on home bias, investigating whether rational or irrational factors drive this behaviour, and highlights the significant influence of culture on investment decisions.
Abstract of the paper presented:
It is well established that investors exhibit home bias while financing firms or projects. What is not clear is whether home bias is driven by information or emotions. We try to disentangle this issue by examining investors’ behaviour in the reward-based crowdfunding market. We argue that keeping information constant, if investors exhibit variation in their home bias behaviour, where the home bias is exhibited more when fund seekers face tough market conditions then emotions drive home bias. Using 3,28,181 ventures from 11 countries spanning years from 2009 to 2020, we find that home bias plays a significant role in crowdfunding success. Additionally, when we observe investor funding behaviour during the COVID-19 period, cultural dimensions and home bias predict crowdfunding success better than during non-COVID-19 period. In summary, our findings suggest that home bias in the crowdfunding market has a stronger emotional appeal than rational information asymmetry appeal.
Congratulations and best wishes to Akhil Raju.