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. 

2024 Dinner Speaker Announced:

  • Steven Pinker, Celebrated Harvard Professor
       Title: "The Emperor, the Elephant, and the Beauty Contest: Common Knowledge in Finance and Everyday Life."

Senior Professor Faculty Speakers:

Most Recent Dinner Speakers:

  • Seth Klarman, CEO & Portfolio Manager, The Baupost Group
  • Robert Rubin, Former Secretary of the Treasury and Co-Chair Goldman Sachs
  • Larry Summers, University Professor, Harvard University

First Ever Dinner Speaker:

  • Charles Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

PROGRAM CURRICULUM

Developed by Harvard Kennedy School faculty, Investment Decisions and Behavioral Finance explores 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
  • Artificial intelligence and finance
  • 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 mid to senior level leaders and 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
  • Chief financial officers
  • Investment strategists
  • Portfolio and fund managers
  • Pension plan executives
  • Corporate investors
  • Bankers and financial planners
  • Junior financial officers

Immerse yourself with a cohort of fellow leaders on Harvard’s historic campus. View the draft program 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 Photo

Richard Zeckhauser

Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Political Economy
617-495-1174

Iris Bohnet Photo

Iris Bohnet

Co-Director, Women and Public Policy Program
Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government
617-495-5605
Robin Greenwood

Robin Greenwood

George Gund Professor of Finance and Banking; Head of Financed Unit, Harvard Business School

Jason Furman Photo

Jason Furman

Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy

David Laibson

David Laibson

Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Chair of the Human Behavior Initiative

Samuel Hanson

Samuel Hanson

William L. White Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School

Lawrence H. Summers Photo

Lawrence H. Summers

Frank and Denie Weil Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government
Charles W. Eliot University Professor
617-495-9322
Dan Levy Photo

Dan Levy

Senior Lecturer in Public Policy

Annie Duke

Annie Duke

World Champion of Poker; Decision Expert
Author of Quit (2022), How to Decide (2020), and Thinking in Bets

Michael J. Mauboussin

Michael J. Mauboussin

Head of Consilient Research at Counterpoint Global, Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Adjunct Professor of Finance at Columbia University

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