Behavioral Finance--Fundamentals

I found this article on behavioral finance that, for those of you who have an interest in the essence of what it is about, will find an interesting read. Here are the particulars. Click on the title to view the paper.

Behavioral Finance
Jay R. Ritter
Cordell Professor of Finance
University of Florida
P.O. Box 117168
Gainesville FL 32611-7168
http://bear.cba.ufl.edu/ritter
jay.ritter@cba.ufl.edu
(352) 846-2837
Published, with minor modifications, in the
Pacific-Basin Finance Journal Vol. 11, No. 4, (September 2003) pp. 429-437.

Abstract
This article provides a brief introduction to behavioral finance. Behavioral finance encompasses research that drops the traditional assumptions of expected utility maximization with rational investors in efficient markets. The two building blocks of behavioral finance are cognitive psychology (how people think) and the limits to arbitrage (when markets will be inefficient). The growth of behavioral finance research has been fueled by the inability of the traditional framework to explain many empirical patterns, including stock market bubbles in Japan, Taiwan,
and the U.S.