Does Chinese Securities Regulators Have Stronger Self-beliefs in Decision-making than Stock Market Investors?

Abstract

Chinese securities regulators are not entirely rational, so they are easily to perform the behaviors that stray from the regulatory objectives and principles. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical importance to discuss the characteristics of self-beliefs in decision-making of Chinese securities regulators. This paper uses the psychological questionnaire including contextual factors to investigate whether Chinese securities regulators and securities market investors are affected by three behavioral biases related to self-beliefs, i.e. overconfidence, confirmation bias, and hindsight bias. Also, we apply variation analysis to examine the differences in self-beliefs in decision-making between Chinese securities regulators and securities market investors, and accordingly discuss whether Chinese securities regulators have stronger self-beliefs in decision-making. The main finding of this paper shows that Chinese securities regulators’ performance in overconfidence, confirmation bias and hindsight bias is significantly different from securities market investors. And after combining and calculating three types of irrational behaviors, we find that the self-beliefs level of Chinese securities regulators（M=48.75）is significantly lower than the ones of personal investors（M=67.97）, institutional investor（M=62.43）and executives of listed companies（M=65.52）, implying that Chinese securities regulators lack the sense of security & self-confidence and are vulnerable to external factors such as laws and regulations so as to give up their positions when they make regulatory decisions. On the basis of the research findings, this paper gives the policy suggestions on improving effectiveness of the Chinese regulatory practice through focus on core functions, full empowerment, incentives, etc.