What Do Investors Want?

Abstract

Investments, like restaurants, offer both utilitarian and expressive benefits. Diners want more than the utilitarian benefits of low cost and high nutrition when they choose restaurants; they want the utilitarian benefits of tastiness, ambiance, and conformance to culture. And they also want the expressive benefits of status, patriotism, and social responsibility. Similarly, investors want more than the utilitarian benefits of low risk and high expected returns when they choose investments; they want additional utilitarian benefits, and they want expressive benefits as well. Food service trade periodicals discuss both the utilitarian benefits of restaurants and their expressive ones, but finance journals confine themselves to the utilitarian benefits of low risk and high expected returns. Might not the expressive benefits of investments be discussed in future finance journals?