Aggarwal, NavdeepJaspreet Kaur2023-12-112023-12-112023Jaspreet Kaur (2023). A Study of effect of demographics and behavioral biases on equity investor behavior (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation). Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810202462According to the theory of behavioral finance, an investor is irrational. Different behavioral biases affect the decision-making of stock investors. The present study aims at developing scales of various behavioral biases and studying the combined effect of demographics and behavioral biases on investment behavior of equity investors. A structured questionnaire is used and data is collected from randomly selected stock investors of Ludhiana city. The sample is split into two parts. The first 250 respondents are taken to check the reliability and for conducting an exploratory factor analysis. It is done to check the purity of the scale and for the development of the factors. Then confirmatory factor analysis is carried out on the next 504 respondents. This research study makes a significant contribution to the literature related to behavioral biases by developing a reliable and valid scale for different behavioral biases of stock investors. The biases include appetite for financial risk, overconfidence, social herding, overreaction, anxiety, impulsivity, information sources, and psychological biases. The combined effect of demographics and behavioral biases on investment in defensive shares, growth shares, cyclic shares, and asset turnaround shares is analyzed using AMOS. The present study can be used by policymakers and market analysts to predict the investor behavior and for making any policies regarding the stock market. Market advisories can give relevant advice and feedback to the stock investors by making them understand these biases and how it affects their decision and helping them to reduce these biases for better decision-making.EnglishThesis