Studies regarding rational decision issues have been conducted over centuries, and one of the common understandings of rationality in financial terms is that investors are assumed to be risk averse. However, a previous paper, Xu & Dent (2007), identifies that property professionals in both the UK and China do not behave in a rational manner as assumed in traditional finance models. This is because the sample in the study is risk seeking when the probabilities of receiving capital gains are low. This current paper explores whether university training would influence the respondentsí risk preferences. A study of first year, final year undergraduate and postgraduate Real Estate students at Oxford Brookes University was used to investigate the potential of university training to improve peopleís decision making, so as to enhance the rationality of their behaviour.
Xu, Ye, and Peter Dent. "AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF UNIVERSITY TRAINING ON UK GRADUATE SURVEYORS' DECISION MAKING." In Book of Abstracts: 15th Annual European Real Estate Society Conference. ERES: Conference. Krakow, Poland, 2008.
Section: G2