Abstract

Investor feelings can affect their investing behavior in the market which may impact the stocks prices and volatility. Investor’s happiness represents a very important feeling that can affect investing behavior. The main question here is whether the launching of a country wide happiness program can affect the investors’ behavior in the stock market and consequently the prices and volatility of stocks. The methodology followed to answer this question was a quantitative methodology using data from the stock market of United Arab Emirates for the years 2015 – 2017 and information about the country’s “national program for happiness and wellbeing” that was started in 2016. Data were analyzed using paired t-test and descriptive statistics. Results revealed that happiness can affect the volatility of stock prices but not the returns of stocks in the market.

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