DrClare Branigan

My research area is the relationship between behavioural decision making and analytical models, with a particular focus on bubble markets where emotions are heightened. I am collaborating with leading researchers in the field of emotional decision making, notably Professor Richard Taffler from the University of Warwick.
My research lies at the interface of a number of disciplines, including data analytics, information systems, psychology, psychoanalysis, finance, economics, and real estate. My current research context is the Irish residential real estate bubble 1994-2007.
There is a paucity of extant research in leading international peer reviewed journals on emotions and bubble markets.

I am currently working on three interrelated work packages of direct relevance to business analytics:
(1) Using analytical methods to test for the impact of emotions on decision-making in the Irish residential real estate market at the height of the bubble. To explore this, I have a unique hand-collected rich dataset of residential property auction data.

(2) Application of analytical methods to detect bubble morphology. Bubbles are extremely difficult to predict and to forecast. Financial analytics has traditionally focused on key word counts and word association frequencies to predicted asset price trajectories. However, such a methodology may be flawed in bubble markets where emotions may play a significant role. In particular, drawing on insights from psychoanalysis and behavioural decision making, I investigate how extant analytical models can be adapted to improve bubble detection.

(3) Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) economists have been criticised for a failure to predict the Crisis. In this work package I explore the failure of economists’ analytical models to predict the unravelling of the Irish residential property market bubble and its disastrous consequences for the banking system and ultimately the Irish economy culminating in the €64bn bailout from the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank (Troika). I use a combination of desk -based research (textual analysis of media, Official reports on the Crisis, the Irish Government Commission of Inquiry on the Banking Crisis, and other sources) as well as interviews with economists across a range of Irish institutions, including banks, stockbrokers, research agencies, real estate brokers, and government agencies to explore how economists’ analytical models may have failed to predict what in hindsight was an obvious bubble.