Behavioral Biases in the Sustainability Framework: An Empirical Study

Abstract

The objective of this paper will be the study and the analysis of the impact of behavioral biases in the sustainable finance environment. In particular, the analysis will focus on the qualitative and quantitative effects of these biases on the financial operators and the impact in their financial decisions. In order to do that, there will be an introduction on the possible biases that affect investors' decisions and a careful description of the data that will be used; the latter will be a survey among retail clients about their knowledge, preferences, holding of sustainable instruments, relevance and impact in their asset allocation and asset management of ESG factors, and so on. One of the purposes of this paper will be to test the biases on the empirical data and find out if these biases are actually discovered and observed also in financial instruments concerning sustainable finance, since they are starting to become very important in financial decisions and investment strategies.