Yaron Levi
Associate Professor of Finance
Michael F. Price College of Business
University of Oklahoma
I study financial decision-making, behavioral finance, social finance, and household finance, with particular emphasis on how social interactions and information design shape investor and consumer behavior.
Research
My research examines financial decision-making in household and capital-market settings. I study how information design, digital access, social interaction, and cognitive constraints shape consumer, investor, and professional behavior, alongside work in empirical asset pricing and corporate finance.
Publications
Mind the App: Mobile Access to Financial Information and Consumer Behavior
First author, with Shlomo Benartzi
Journal: The Journal of Finance
Status: Forthcoming
Using transaction data from an account-aggregation platform and the staggered release of mobile apps across devices, we estimate how mobile access changes consumers’ engagement with their finances. Mobile access increases login frequency and reduces discretionary spending, with stronger effects among lower-income consumers and consumers with high spending relative to income.
Personal Financial Information Presentation and Consumer Spending
Journal: Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Year: 2026
Publication status: Published online; First View
Using a randomized field experiment on an online account-aggregation app, I study whether presenting net worth as a lifetime monthly cash flow changes spending. A consumption-oriented frame combined with a salient comparison to past spending reduces discretionary spending, showing that small changes in financial-information design can materially affect behavior.
Spending Less after (Seemingly) Bad News
With: Mark J. Garmaise and Hanno Lustig
Journal: The Journal of Finance
Year: 2024, Volume: 79(4), Pages: 2429–2471
We use high-frequency transaction data to study household responses when a salient local unemployment announcement appears to be bad even though it contains no new information about economic fundamentals. News coverage rises and discretionary spending falls, especially among lower-income households, and the decline is not subsequently reversed.
Symmetric and Asymmetric Market Betas and Downside Risk
With: Ivo Welch
Journal: The Review of Financial Studies
Year: 2020, Volume: 33(6), Pages: 2772–2795
We compare standard market beta with downside and asymmetric beta as measures of crash exposure and priced risk. Standard beta predicts future downside beta better and performs well in bear markets, while ex ante downside beta does not predict higher returns.
Decision Fatigue and Heuristic Analyst Forecasts
With: David Hirshleifer, Ben Lourie, and Siew Hong Teoh
Journal: Journal of Financial Economics
Year: 2019, Volume: 133(1), Pages: 83–98
We test whether sell-side analysts’ forecast quality declines after making more forecasts during the same day. Later forecasts are less accurate and more likely to herd, repeat prior forecasts, or use rounded values, and the market reacts less strongly to them.
Best Practice for Cost-of-Capital Estimates
With: Ivo Welch
Journal: Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Year: 2017, Volume: 52(2), Pages: 427–463
We evaluate practical methods for estimating factor loadings used in cost-of-capital calculations. Vasicek-shrunk betas based on one to four years of daily returns perform well, while market-cap-matched peer betas are preferable to industry averages when a firm lacks its own return history.
Working Papers
Social Interaction Intensity and Investor Behavior
With: Michael Gelman, David Hirshleifer, and Liron Reiter-Gavish
Status: NBER Working Paper No. 32772
Year: 2024, revised February 2025
We use variation in the number of local soccer matches as a measure of social-interaction intensity to identify a causal effect of social contact on investor behavior. Greater interaction amplifies buying responses to past buys—especially in riskier, high-return stocks—and increases the sensitivity of trading volume and portfolio risk to prior trading.
Yaron Levi
Associate Professor of Finance
Michael F. Price College of Business
University of Oklahoma