Methodological Dominance in Academic Finance: The Case of Behavioural Finance
Kenneth Weir
Abstract
Academic finance is claimed to be a discipline dominated by positivist research approaches. This is maligned by
some researchers owing to the preservation of a rather narrow research agenda, which limits the possible
development of finance as a discipline. By drawing upon the development of behavioural finance as an
illustration, the article outlines how particular research areas and topics can be captured through positivist
approaches, and speculates on methodological, and epistemological, implications of such capture. The article
concludes with a call for methodological pluralism in finance.
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