Abstract

When it comes to investment expectations, entrepreneurs rely on their gut feelings, aka “animal spirits.” And yet, in most models, animal spirits are seen as “black box” irrationality that would cause random shocks. The purpose of this paper is to open this black box in order to comprehend how animal spirits work. First, we draw on Keynes’s texts and insights from psychology and neuroscience so as to elaborate a theoretical model of animal spirits. It seems they estimate prospective yields in an analogical and emotional fashion. Second, we implement a field study (presumably the first of its kind) in the context of a very realistic business game simulation in order to assess the animal spirits of would-be entrepreneurs and see whether they weigh more in investment expectations than the real factors so far outlined by the literature (profits, debt, the rate of capacity utilization, etc.). We find that emotions play a prominent role in investment decisions and that some of them enable entrepreneurs to cope with radical uncertainty.

摘要

当谈到投资预期时，企业家依赖于他们的直觉，也就是“动物精神”。然而，在大多数模型中，动物精神被视为会导致随机冲击的“黑匣子”非理性。本文的目的是打开这个黑匣子，以了解动物精神是如何工作的。首先，我们借鉴凯恩斯的著作以及心理学和神经科学的见解，阐述了动物精神的理论模型。他们似乎以类比和情感的方式估计预期收益。其次，我们在非常现实的商业游戏模拟的背景下进行了实地研究（可能是同类研究中的第一次），以评估潜在企业家的动物精神，看看他们在投资预期中的权重是否大于实际因素到目前为止，文献（利润、债务、产能利用率等）。我们发现情绪在投资决策中发挥着重要作用，其中一些情绪使企业家能够应对根本的不确定性。