As impossible as it is for investors today to imagine the stock
market in the 17th century, it would have been equally
impossible, if not more so, for investors back then to have the
remotest inkling of the technological wonder that is the modern
day stock market. However, while the markets have radically
changed through the ages, investor behavior really hasn’t
changed at all, says Teresa Corzo, finance professor at the
Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid—and chances are it
isn’t likely to change in times to come. Corzo—part of a
recently minted research group at the Universidad Pontificia
that focuses on behavioral finance—bases her argument on 17th
century Spanish merchant, philanthropist and writer Jose de la
Vega’s “Confusion de Confusiones” (“Confusion of Confusions”), a
book published in 1688 that many believe to be the first
description of the workings of a stock market (Amsterdam’s, in
this case, since that’s where de la Vega lived) and the behavior
of those who participated in that market. The