On Measuring the Economic Significance of Asset Return Predictability

On Measuring the Economic Significance of Asset Return Predictability
Author: Murray Carlson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 70
Release: 2001
Genre:
ISBN:

A number of recent studies have measured the quantitative effect of excess return predictability on the optimal consumption and portfolio choices of a rational investor, and they have used the utility costs of ignoring predictability as a natural measure of economic significance. We use a general equilibrium model as a laboratory for generating predictable excess returns and for assessing the properties of the estimated consumption/portfolio rules, under both the empirical and the true dynamics of excess returns. We find that conditional rules based on ordinary least squares estimates of excess returns are severely biased, and they have a large variance across multiple simulated histories of the model. In this experiment, we find the estimation issues to be so severe that the simple unconditional consumption and portfolio rules, from Merton (1969), actually outperform (in a utility cost sense) both simple and bias-corrected empirical estimates of conditionally optimal policies.

Catching Up with the Joneses

Catching Up with the Joneses
Author: Yeung Lewis Chan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2001
Genre: Economics
ISBN:

We analyze a general equilibrium exchange economy with a continuum of agents who have 'catching up with the Joneses' preferences and differ only with respect to the curvature of their utility functions. While individual risk aversion does not change over time, dynamic redistribution of wealth among the agents leads to countercyclical time variation in the Sharpe ratio of stock returns. We show that both the conditional risk premium and the return volatility are negatively related to the level of stock prices, as observed empirically. Therefore, our model exhibits many of the empirically observed properties of aggregate stock returns, e.g., patterns of autocorrelation in returns, the 'leverage effect' in return volatility and long-horizon return predictability. For comparison, otherwise similar representative agent economies with the same type of preferences exhibit counter-factual behavior, e.g., a constant Sharpe ratio of returns and procyclical risk premium and return volatility

Asset Market Dynamics of Heterogeneous Agent Models with Learning

Asset Market Dynamics of Heterogeneous Agent Models with Learning
Author: Yuanying Guan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 104
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:

ABSTRACT: The standard Lucas asset pricing model makes two common assumptions of homogeneous agents and rational expectations equilibrium. However, these assumptions are unrealistic for real financial markets. In this work, we relax these assumptions and establish a Lucas type agent-based asset pricing model. We create an artificial economy with a single risky asset and populate it with heterogeneous, boundedly rational, utility maximizing, infinitely lived and forward looking agents. We restrict agents' information by allowing them to use only available information when they make optimal choices. With independent, identically distributed market returns, agents are able to compute their policy functions and the equilibrium pricing function with Duffie's method (Duffie, 1988) without perfect information about the market. When agents are out of equilibrium, they simultaneously compute their policy functions with predictive pricing functions and use adaptive learning schemes to learn the motion of the correct pricing function. Agents are able to learn the correct equilibrium pricing function with certain risk and learning parameters. In some other cases, the market price has excess volatility and the trading volume is very high. Simulations of the market behavior show rich dynamics, including a whole cascade from period doubling bifurcations to chaos. We apply the full families theory (De Melo and Van Strien, 1993) to prove that the rich dynamics do not come from numerical errors but are embedded in the structure of our dynamical system.

Return Predictability and Stock Market Crashes in a Simple Rational Expectations Model

Return Predictability and Stock Market Crashes in a Simple Rational Expectations Model
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2005
Genre:
ISBN:

This paper presents a simple rational expectations model of intertemporal asset pricing. It shows that heterogeneous risk aversion of investors is likely to generate declining aggregate relative risk aversion. This leads to predictability of asset returns and high and persistent volatility. Stock market crashes may be observed if relative risk aversion differs strongly across investors. Then aggregate relative risk aversion may sharply increase given a small impairment in fundamentals so that asset prices may strongly decline. Changes in aggregate relative risk aversion may also lead to resistance and support levels as used in technical analysis. For numerical illustration we propose an analytical asset price formula. -- Aggregate relative risk aversion ; Equilibrium asset price processes ; Excess Volatility ; Return predictability ; Stock market crashes

Asset Pricing in a Lucas Framework with Boundedly Rational, Heterogeneous Agents

Asset Pricing in a Lucas Framework with Boundedly Rational, Heterogeneous Agents
Author: Andrew James Culham
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2007
Genre:
ISBN:

ABSTRACT: The standard dynamic general equilibrium model of financial markets does a poor job of explaining the empirical facts observed in real market data. The common assumptions of homogeneous investors and rational expectations equilibrium are thought to be major factors leading to this poor performance. In an attempt to relax these assumptions, the literature has seen the emergence of agent-based computational models where artificial economies are populated with agents who trade in stylized asset markets. Although they offer a great deal of flexibility, the theoretical community has often criticized these agent-based models because the agents are too limited in their analytical abilities.

Gone With the Vol

Gone With the Vol
Author: Alex Hsu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2019
Genre:
ISBN:

We document a significant shift in the comovement of asset returns and macroeconomic volatility during the Great Moderation. Strong U.S. stock and bond return predictability from several macroeconomic volatility series before 1982 was followed by a significant predictability decline during the Great Moderation (1982-2008). These findings are robust to alternative empirical specifications and out-of-sample tests. In a calibrated time-varying-volatility equilibrium model, the predictability decline is consistent with changes in monetary policy and shock dynamics. A stronger policy response to inflation and lower cost-push shock variance reduce the sensitivity of macroeconomic variables and asset returns to a persistent volatility factor, explaining the lower predictability. The results contribute to examine macroeconomic volatility as a driver of expected asset returns, and identify sources of the Great Moderation using asset price dynamics.

Long Memory in Financial Markets

Long Memory in Financial Markets
Author: Min Zheng
Publisher:
Total Pages: 29
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

During last decades, studies on asset pricing models witnessed a paradigm shift from rational expectation and representative agent to an alternative, behavioral view, where agents are heterogeneous and boundedly rational. In this paper, we model the financial market as an interaction of two types of boundedly rational investors -fundamentalists and chartists. We examine the dynamics of the market price and market behavior, which depend on investors' behavior and the interaction of the two types of investors. Numerical simulations of the corresponding stochastic model demonstrate that the model is able to replicate the stylized facts of financial time series, in particular the long-term dependence (long memory) of asset return volatilities. We further investigate the source of the long memory according to asset pricing mechanism of our model, and provide evidences of long memory by applying the modified R/S analysis. Our results demonstrate that the key parameter that has impact on the long memory is the speed of the price adjustment of the market maker at the equilibrium of demand and supply.