William Goetzmann

One of the emerging authorities on behavioral economics—how social, cognitive and emotional factors affect markets.

He is an established expert on a diverse range of investments, including stocks, hedge funds, mutual funds, real estate, and paintings. 

He is Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies at the Yale School of Management and Director of its International Center for Finance.

Traditional economics assumes that people make economic decisions rationally. They don’t always do so, of course, and the result is market behavior that doesn’t match traditional expectations. Like bubbles, and the collapse of bubbles. To fully understand markets, you have to study the psychology of markets.

William Goetzmann explains market behavior as a product of both market forces and social and psychological factors. As its director, Professor Goetzmann oversees research at Yale’s International Center for Finance, an interdisciplinary research center. The Center’s Behavioral Finance Research Initiative studies bubbles, momentum, the psychology of overreaction and underreaction, investor confidence, consumer choice and clientele change.

A recognized expert on modern portfolio and investment theory, Will has recently edited a history of financial invention, The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets.

Will also is a renowned authority on art investments and in this area has written books, co-produced documentaries and curated art exhibits.