【正文】 a matter of debate. Prior research has suggested managerial optimism as an explanation: optimistic managers may believe their firms are undervalued, and, as such, they prefer to access debt capital instead of equity capital. Lin et al. find evidence consistent with this hypothesis. Namely, using managements39。 earnings forecast as a proxy measure of managerial optimism, they find that firms with optimistic managers are more likely to finance deficits with debt rather than equity. Hopefully, we will see more research on behavioral corporate finance in the future.3. ConclusionThe behavioral finance paradigm for explaining how agents behave and how their behavior might affect financial markets looks like it is here to stay. Although conducting research on behavioral finance poses many challenges and hurdles, the authors in this special issue have (to a high degree) successfully addressed those challenges. We suspect that even more of those challenges and hurdles will be overe in future research. Our overall goal with this special issue was to help bring behavioral finance theories to Asian financial markets. The Asian financial markets represent a fruitful testing ground for behavioral finance researchers: the papers in this special issue represent solid proof of this assertion. We hope that readers will enjoy and benefit from the contents of these studies as much as we enjoyed and benefited from putting this issue together. And, of course, we hope these papers help spur the next generation of behavioral finance research.AcknowledgementsIn total, we received 41 initial submissions to the special issue, although not all papers were sent out for review (most monly because they did not fit with the theme of this special issue). The editorial review process was rigorous, and, unfortunately, we had to make the difficult decision of rejecting some very interesting and provocative papers. Among the eight papers that were finally accepted, most were revised at least twice. Thus, the papers in this issue are certainly polished.When we initially undertook the task of putting together a special issue on behavioral finance in Asia, we had very little idea of how difficult that task would be. As coeditors, we took turns serving as point person on each paper。 however, for every paper, we consulted with one another before any decisions were made, which required that we both read every paper that was submitted. However, our task of evaluating papers was made tremendously easier as we took advantage of the expertise and the time of the papers39。 referees, whose reports were thoughtful, constructive, and extremely helpful to the authors. More often than not, we also engaged in active munication with referees. The following scholars, who were outstanding in their willingness to contribute their time to make this a great special issue, served as referees:KeeHong Bae, Queen39。s University, CanadaKent Baker, American UniversityGlenn Boyle, University of Otago, New ZealandGreg Brown, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillColin Camerer, California Institute of TechnologyJoon Chae, Seoul National University, KoreaCharles Chang, Cornell UniversityWenI Chuang, National Taiwan University of Science and TechnologyRichard Deaves, McMaster University, CanadaMichael Dowling, University of Dublin, IrelandLaura Frieder, Purdue UniversityGeoffrey Friesen, University of NebraskaLincolnDave Haushalter, Pennsylvania State UniversitySoosung Hwang, City University, United KingdomJungwook Kim, University of Alberta, CanadaLisa Kramer, University of Toronto, CanadaAlexander Kurov, West Virginia UniversitySonya Lim, DePaul UniversityPeter Locke, George Washington UniversityBrian Lucey, University of Dublin, IrelandDavid McLean, Boston CollegeDavid Michayluk, University of Technology at Sydney, AustraliaJason Mitchell, University of Western AustraliaHenry Oppenheimer, University of Rhode IslandGioia Pescetto, University of Durham, United KingdomMark Peterson, Southern Illinois University at CarbondaleYiming Qian, University of IowaOliver Rui, Chinese University of Hong KongMark Seasholes, University of California, BerkeleyItzhak Venezia, Hebrew University of JerusalemQinghai Wang, University of WisconsinMilwaukeeMarc Weidenmeir, Claremont McKenna CollegeFei Wu, Massey University, New ZealandShanhong Wu, State University of New York at BuffaloYexiao Xu, University of Texas, DallasNing Zhu, University of California, DavisFinally, we would be remiss if we did not extend our gratitude to the administrations at the business schools of the State University of New York at Buffalo and Washington State University for supporting us in this effort. Last but not least, we are especially grateful to Ghon Rhee for giving us this opportunity to put together this special issue.ReferencesBarber and Odean, 2001 B. Barber and T. Odean, Boys will be boys: gender, overconfidence, and mon stock investments, Quarterly Journal of Economics 116 (2001), pp. 261–292. Full Text via CrossRef | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (226)Barber and Odean, 2002 B. Barber and T. Odean, Online investors: do the slow die first?, Review of Financial Studies 15 (2002), pp. 455–487. View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (67)Barberis and Thaler, 2003 N. Barberis and R. Thaler, A survey of behavioral finance. In: G. Constantinides, M. Harris and R. Stulz, Editors, Handbook of the Economics of Finance, NorthHolland, Amsterdam (2003).Brown and Mitchell, 2008 P. Brown and J. Mitchell, Culture and stock price clustering: evidence from the Peoples39。 Republic of China, PacificBasin Finance Journal 16 (2008), pp. 95–120 (this issue). Article | PDF (823 K) | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (1)Chen et al., in press Chen, G., Kim, . Nofsinger, . Rui, ., in press. Trading performance, disposition effect, overconfidence, representativeness bias, and experience o