Do Disaster Expectations Explain Household Portfolios?
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Authors
Alan, Sule
Publication Date
2010-03Journal Title
Journal of Quantitative Economics
Series
CFAP Working Paper
34
Publisher
CFAP, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
Language
English
Type
Working Paper
Metadata
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Alan, S. (2010). Do Disaster Expectations Explain Household Portfolios?. Journal of Quantitative Economics http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/225146
Abstract
It has been argued that rare economic disasters can explain most asset pricing puzzles. If this is the case, perceived risk associated with a disaster in stock markets should be revealed in household portfolios. That is, the framework that solves these pricing puzzles should also generate quantities that are consistent with the observed ones. This paper estimates the perceived risk of disasters (both probability and expected size) that is consistent with observed portfolios and consumption growth between 1983 and 2004 in the United States. I find that the portfolio choice of households that have less than a college degree can be partially explained by expectations of stock markets disasters only if one allows for a large probability of labor income loss at the same time. Such disaster expectations however, are not revealed in the portfolios of educated and wealthier households; simple per-period participation costs to stock market coupled with preference heterogeneity explain their participation and investment patterns.
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This record's URL: http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/225146