Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA20003 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:43:30 GMT From: <AaronLynch@aol.com> Message-ID: <a2.212e30ad.29a76b70@aol.com> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 04:37:52 EST Subject: Two financial thought contagion papers now online To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 113 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Yesterday, I placed two financial thought contagion papers
online. They are:
"Thought Contagions In the Stock Market" was published in
the Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets Volume 1,
number 1, on March 24, 2000. (Also presented in a 1999
conference.) Its URL is
http://www.thoughtcontagion.com/thoughtcontagionsinstockmarket.htm.
Thought Contagions in the Stock Market
Aaron Lynch
ABSTRACT
The evolutionary epidemiology of ideas, or thought contagion
theory, is introduced and applied to possible examples in the
stock market. It is suggested that differences in transmissivity,
receptivity, and longevity of belief may contribute numerous
irrational influences on the stock market, generating sources of
inefficiency. These include a wide variety of mechanisms that
may generate both positive and negative market overreactions.
The soaring prices of Internet stocks during 1998-1999 are used
as an example of how investment ideas correlating with new
communication behaviors may affect share prices, and how
contagion effects in general can affect the broader market. New
avenues of empirical investigation are proposed to test the types
of hypotheses presented.
A separate academic article that expands on the first and discusses
some applications in general terms is published as "Thought contagion
in the stock markets: A general framework and focus on the Internet
bubble," in Derivatives Use, Trading and Regulation 6:4, p. 338-362
The online version is available at
http://www.thoughtcontagion.com/InternetBubbleContagion.pdf.
Thought Contagion in the Stock Markets: A General Framework
and Focus on the Internet Bubble
Aaron Lynch
ABSTRACT
The possibility that ideas have self-spreading aspects contributing to
market movements is introduced, and set within a broader framework
of the evolutionary epidemiology of ideas. A broad range of contagion
factors are discussed, and explained in terms of transmissivity,
receptivity, and longevity of beliefs. These factors are hypothesised
as contributing to the prevalence of a great diversity of mass beliefs
that can affect share prices. Distinctions are drawn between
truth-contingent and non-truth-contingent transmission mechanisms,
and the emergence of multi-refutation-resistant strains of belief is
considered as a challenge to effective decision-making. All of
these principles are applied to the 1998 to early 2000 Internet stocks
bubble as an extended case study.
--Aaron Lynch
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 22 2002 - 09:53:21 GMT