Upcoming Sessions
- On Campus
Session Date
Coming Soon
Application Deadline
Coming Soon
Faculty Chair
Richard Zeckhauser
Program Director
Ariana Diaz
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Program Fee: The program fee includes tuition, curricular materialsand most meals. Housing is not included.
Program Overview
Common biases. Irrational investment behaviors. Decision-trap situations. In today’s complex and rapidly changing financial markets, senior executives responsible for managing client assets need to understand these and other factors that can lead to sub-optimal outcomes for investors.
Investment Decisions and Behavioral Finance is an intensive two-day program from Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education. It will expose you to the central principles and latest findings of the psychology of decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty.
Led by Faculty Chair Richard Zeckhauser, this on-campus program focuses on practical applications for professionals who manage assets and construct portfolios for investment clients.
Dinner Speaker:
- Seth Klarman,CEO & Portfolio Manager, The Baupost Group
Lunch Speaker:
- Owen Lamont, Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager, Acadian Asset Management
Senior Professor Faculty Speakers:
- Larry Summers, University Professor, Harvard University
- Richard Zeckhauser, Harvard Kennedy School
- Jason Furman, Harvard Kennedy School and Economics Department
- Iris Bohnet, Harvard Kennedy School
- Robin Greenwood, Harvard Business School
- Samuel Hanson, Harvard Business School
- David Laibson, Harvard Economics Department
- Nicholas Barberis, Yale School of Management
- Michael Mauboussin, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Columbia
- Annie Duke, Poker World Champion
PROGRAM CURRICULUM
Developed by Harvard Kennedy School faculty, Investment Decisions and Behavioral Financeexplores the science behind investment decision making.
The program opens with a networking dinner, followed by two days of classroom sessions. You will take part in thought-provoking discussions and interactive learning exercises with leading behavioral finance professionals and academics.
Reflecting the most current research and issues in the financial markets, the curriculum focuses on:
- Behavioral insights into financial markets
- Crash beliefs from investor surveys
- Global outlook, debt cycles, and monetary policy
- The challenges and opportunities of the aging investor
- Gender retirement gaps
- Big data, smart beta, and other things investors fear
- Methods to improve decisions
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Investment Decisions and Behavioral Finance will help you understand:
- The applied science of effective decision making
- How our brains are not wired to make the decisions that modern financial markets require—and ways to adjust for these shortcomings
- How and why financial bubbles develop and strategies for recognizing them
- The psychological reasons that lead investors to make severe investment errors
Application Information
This on-campus program from Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education is designed for corporate executives in the financial and investment community who are interested in hearing the perspectives of intellectual thought leaders and leading practitioners.
Professionals who would find value in this program include:
- Investment company presidents
- Chief investment officers
- Investment strategists
- Portfolio and fund managers
- Pension plan executives
- Corporate investors
Immerse yourself with a cohort of fellow leaders on Harvard’s historic campus. View the draftprogram schedule. Note that module titles, speakers, and sequence may change.
WHAT PARTICIPANTS ARE SAYING
"As a board member of one of the largest pension funds in America, I found this to be the most valuable class I have ever taken."
Bruce Perelman, Former Secretary of the Board of Investments
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Hear from the Faculty Chair
Faculty Chair Richard Zeckhauser and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Dan Levy discuss the triumphs and failures of making important decisions in groups.
Faculty & Research
Richard Zeckhauser
Appointment
Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Political Economy
617-495-1174
Mailing Address 1
Harvard Kennedy School
Mailing Address 2
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Mailbox
41
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Zip
02138
Iris Bohnet
Appointment
Co-Director, Women and Public Policy Program
Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government
617-495-5605
Mailing Address 1
Harvard Kennedy School
Mailing Address 2
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Mailbox
100
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Zip
02138
Robin Greenwood
Appointment
George Gund Professor of Finance and Banking; Head of Financed Unit, Harvard Business School
Jason Furman
Appointment
Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy
Mailing Address 1
Harvard Kennedy School
Mailing Address 2
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Mailbox
84
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Zip
02138
David Laibson
Appointment
Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Chair of the Human Behavior Initiative
Samuel Hanson
Appointment
William L. White Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School
Lawrence H. Summers
Appointment
Frank and Denie Weil Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government
Charles W. Eliot University Professor
617-495-9322
Mailing Address 1
Harvard Kennedy School
Mailing Address 2
79 John F. Kennedy Street
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Zip
02138
Nicholas Barberis
Appointment
Stephen and Camille Schramm Professor of Finance, Yale School of Management
Annie Duke
Appointment
World Champion of Poker; Decision Expert
Author of Quit (2022), How to Decide (2020), and Thinking in Bets
Seth Klarman
Appointment
CEO and Portfolio Manager, The Baupost Group, L.L.C.
Owen Lamont
Appointment
Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager, Acadian Asset Management
Michael J. Mauboussin
Appointment
Head of Consilient Research at Counterpoint Global, Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Adjunct Professor of Finance at Columbia University
Arnold S. Wood
Appointment
Founder and former CEO Martingale Asset Management
- Larry Summers details how Senate plan will reduce inflation - Lawrence H. Summers
- Summers Warns Fed on 1970s-Style Mistake With CPI Set to Slow
- When Managers Change Their Tone, Analysts and Investors Change Their Tune
- Less is more when it comes to Federal Reserve policy
- ‘Dumb Money’ and the Meme Stock Phenomenon
- Investor Rewards to Climate Responsibility: Stock-Price Responses to the Opposite Shocks of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Elections
- Investing in the Unknown and Unknowable
- Status Quo Bias in Decision Making
- The Value of Precision in Probability Assessment: Evidence from a Large-Scale Geopolitical Forecasting Tournament
- Issuer Quality and Corporate Bond Returns
- Predictable Financial Crises
- Incorporating DEI into Decision-Making
- Achieving Gender Balance at All Levels of Your Company
- How to Best Use Data to Meet Your DE&I Goals
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exed@hks.harvard.edu +1-617-496-9000
