Report
Strategic Sophistication and Trading Profits: An Experiment with Professional Traders
Angrisani, Marco; Guarino, Antonio; Cipriani, Marco (2022-12-01)
We run an experiment where professional traders, endowed with private information, trade an asset over multiple periods. After the trading game, we gather information about the professional traders’ characteristics by having them carry out a series of tasks. We study which of these characteristics predict profits in the trading game. We find that strategic sophistication, as measured in the Guessing Game (for example, through level-k theory), is the only significant determinant of professional traders’ profits. In contrast, profits are not driven by individual characteristics such as ...
Staff Reports , Paper 1044

Report
Trading by Professional Traders: An Experiment
Cipriani, Marco; http://fedora:8080/fcrepo/rest/objects/authors/; De Filippis, Roberta; Guarino, Antonio (2020-08-01)
We examine how professional traders behave in two financial market experiments; we contrast professional traders’ behavior to that of undergraduate students, the typical experimental subject pool. In our first experiment, both sets of participants trade an asset over multiple periods after receiving private information about its value. Second, participants play the Guessing Game. Finally, they play a novel, individual-level version of the Guessing Game and we collect data on their cognitive abilities, risk preferences, and confidence levels. We find three differences between traders and ...
Staff Reports , Paper 939

Report
Noncognitive Skills at the Time of COVID-19: An Experiment with Professional Traders and Students
Angrisani, Marco; Cipriani, Marco; Guarino, Antonio; Kendall, Ryan; Ortiz de Zarate Pina, Julen (2023-02-01)
We study the stability of noncognitive skills by comparing experimental results gathered before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a sample of professional traders, we find a significant decrease in agreeableness and locus of control and a moderate decrease in grit. These patterns are primarily driven by those with more negative experiences of the pandemic. Other skills, such as trust, conscientiousness, and self-monitoring, are unchanged. We contrast these results with those from a sample of undergraduate students whose noncognitive skills remain constant (except conscientiousness). Our ...
Staff Reports , Paper 1055