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World Income Components: Measuring and Exploiting Risk-Sharing Opportunities

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Author Info
Stefano G. Athanasoulis (Yale University)
Robert J. Shiller () (Cowles Foundation, Yale University)

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Abstract

We provide a method for decomposing the variance of changes in incomes in the world into components, world income components (WICs), in such a way as to indicate the most important risk-sharing opportunities among people of the world. We develop a constant absolute risk premium model, an intertemporal general equilibrium model of the world that facilitates consideration of optimal contract design. We show that for a contract designer maximizing a social welfare function, the optimal risk-management contracts maximize the equilibrium world real interest rate. That is the contract designer achieves the risk-optimal interest rate. We show that these WIC securities are defined in terms of eigenvectors of a transformed variance matrix of income changes. The method is applied with a variance matrix estimated using Penn World Table data on the G-7 countries, 1950-92.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Cowles Foundation, Yale University in its series Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers with number 1239.

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Length: 43 pages
Date of creation: Oct 1999
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Publication status: Published in The American Economic Review (2001), 91(4): 1031-1054
Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1239

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Keywords: Constant Absolute Risk Premium; risk-optimal interest rate; three-level income model; WIC securities; contract design; macro markets; hedging;

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References listed on IDEAS
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  14. Robert J. Shiller & Stefano Athanasoulis, 1995. "World Income Components: Measuring and Exploiting International Risk Sharing Opportunities," NBER Working Papers 5095, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Ken Miyajima, 2006. "How to Evaluate GDP-Linked Warrants: Price and Repayment Capacity," IMF Working Papers 06/85, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  2. Mark J. Kamstra & Robert J. Shiller, 2009. "The Case for Trills: Giving the People and Their Pension Funds a Stake in the Wealth of the Nation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1717, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
  3. Acharya, Viral V & Bisin, Alberto, 2003. "Optimal Financial Market Integration and Security Design," CEPR Discussion Papers 3852, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Social Security and Individual Accounts as Elements of Overall Risk-Sharing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 343-347, May. [Downloadable!]
  5. Maria Giduskova & Borja Larrain, 2006. "International risk-taking, volatility, and consumption growth," Communities and Banking, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. [Downloadable!]
  6. Stephane Pallage & Michel A. Robe, 2002. "The States vs. the states: On the Welfare Cost of Business Cycles in the U.S," Cahiers de recherche du Département des sciences économiques, UQAM 20-17, Université du Québec à Montréal, Département des sciences économiques, revised Oct 2002. [Downloadable!]
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