Research on Comparing Financial Forecasting Abilities between Financial Professionals and Students through International Collaboration by Professor Katsuhiko Okada, Graduate School of Business Administration, Kwansei Gakuin University, is Published in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance

On April 15, 2025, the results of research by Professor Katsuhiko Okada, Graduate School of Business Administration, Kwansei Gakuin University, on comparing financial forecasting abilities between financial professionals and students were published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance.

Prof. Okada, as a member of an international research team collaborating with Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and Émlyon Business School (France), conducted experimental research comparing the forecasting performance of Certified Financial Analysts (CFAs) from the Securities Analysts Association of Japan with that of university students. The study employed four forecasting tasks ranging from predicting random walk series to forecasting the actual Nikkei index.

The research revealed that while professionals and students performed similarly on abstract laboratory tasks, CFAs outperformed students on a field task involving real-time Nikkei index predictions. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that this performance difference was explained by financial literacy rather than cognitive ability.

This research contributes to understanding the sources of financial professionals' forecasting expertise and provides implications for financial education and professional development. Future research is expected to extend these findings to different market environments and financial professionals in other countries.

Journal name: Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance
Article title: Financial forecasting in the lab and the field: Qualified professionals vs. smart students
Author(s): Te Bao, Brice Corgnet, Nobuyuki Hanaki, Katsuhiko Okada, Yohanes E. Riyanto, Jiahua Zhu
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2025.101051