This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

High-Order Consumption Moments and Asset Pricing

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Andrei Semenov
Abstract

To assess the potential of incomplete consumption insurance for explaining the equity premium and the risk-free rate of return, we use a Taylor series expansion of the individual's marginal utility of consumption around the conditional expectation of consumption and derive an approximate equilibrium model for expected returns. In this model, the priced risk factors are the cross-moments of return with the moments of the cross-sectional distribution of individual consumption and the coefficients of the risk factors are determined by the derivatives of the utility function. Using this approach allows to avoid an ad hoc specification of preferences and to consider a general class of utility functions when addressing the question of the effect of a particular moment of the cross-sectional distribution of individual consumption on the expected equity premium and risk-free interest rate. We demonstrate that if consumers exhibit decreasing and convex absolute prudence, then the cross-sectional mean and skewness of individual consumption help explain the equity premium if their cross-moments with the excess market portfolio return are positive, while the cross-sectional variance and kurtosis always lower the equity premium explained by the model. The empirical investigation uses the data on the monthly household consumption of nondurables and services, reconstructed from the Consumer Expenditure Survey database. The Hansen-Jagannathan volatility bound analysis, calibration, and GMM analysis results show that under the CRRA preferences, the model can reproduce the observed equity premium and risk-free rate with economically plausible values of the relative risk aversion coefficient (between 0.6 and 1.6) and the time discount factor when the cross-sectional skewness of individual consumption, combined with the cross-sectional mean and variance, is taken into account

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://dept.econ.yorku.ca/~asemenov/wp2003-12-1.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function: main text
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings with number 130.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: 11 Aug 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ecm:nawm04:130

Contact details of provider:
Phone: 1 212 998 3820
Fax: 1 212 995 4487
Email:
Web page: http://www.econometricsociety.org/pastmeetings.asp
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).

Related research
Keywords: equity premium puzzle; heterogeneous consumers; incomplete consumption insurance; risk-free rate puzzle.;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
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. John Y. Campbell & John H. Cochrane, 1994. "By Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," CRSP working papers 412, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Gollier, Christian & Pratt, John W, 1996. "Risk Vulnerability and the Tempering Effect of Background Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1109-23, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Hansen, Lars Peter & Jagannathan, Ravi, 1991. "Implications of Security Market Data for Models of Dynamic Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 225-62, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Constantinides, George M & Duffie, Darrell, 1996. "Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Consumers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 219-40, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Christian Gollier, 2004. "The Economics of Risk and Time," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262572249.
  6. Heaton, John & Lucas, Deborah J, 1996. "Evaluating the Effects of Incomplete Markets on Risk Sharing and Asset Pricing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 443-87, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Cogley, Timothy, 2002. "Idiosyncratic risk and the equity premium: evidence from the consumer expenditure survey," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 309-334, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Abel, A.B., 1990. "Asset Prices Under Habit Formation And Catching Up With The Joneses," Weiss Center Working Papers 1-90, Wharton School - Weiss Center for International Financial Research.
    Other versions:
  9. Heaton, John & Lucas, Deborah, 1992. "The effects of incomplete insurance markets and trading costs in a consumption-based asset pricing model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 601-620. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Kimball, Miles S, 1993. "Standard Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 589-611, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Lucas, Deborah J., 1994. "Asset pricing with undiversifiable income risk and short sales constraints: Deepening the equity premium puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 325-341, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Aiyagari, S. Rao & Gertler, Mark, 1991. "Asset returns with transactions costs and uninsured individual risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 311-331, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  14. Bansal, Ravi & Hsieh, David A & Viswanathan, S, 1993. " A New Approach to International Arbitrage Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1719-47, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Heaton, John & Lucas, Deborah, 1995. "The importance of investor heterogeneity and financial market imperfections for the behavior of asset prices," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-32, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Lettau, Martin, 1998. "Idiosyncratic Risk and Volatility Bounds, or, Can Models with Idiosyncratic Risk Solve the Equity Premium Puzzle?," CEPR Discussion Papers 1795, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Pratt, John W & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1987. "Proper Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 143-54, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Kjetil Storesletten & Chris Telmer & Amir Yaron, . "Persistent Idiosyncratic Shocks and Incomplete Markets," GSIA Working Papers 24, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business. [Downloadable!]
  19. Kris Jacobs, 1999. "Incomplete Markets and Security Prices: Do Asset-Pricing Puzzles Result from Aggregation Problems?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(1), pages 123-163, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Robert F. Dittmar, 2002. "Nonlinear Pricing Kernels, Kurtosis Preference, and Evidence from the Cross Section of Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 369-403, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 1994. "Is Consumption Growth Consistent with Intertemporal Optimization? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," NBER Working Papers 4795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  22. Carroll, Christopher D, 1994. "How Does Future Income Affect Current Consumption?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(1), pages 111-47, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  23. Abel, Andrew B., 1999. "Risk premia and term premia in general equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 3-33, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  24. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  25. Heaton, John & Lucas, Deborah, 1997. "Market Frictions, Savings Behavior, And Portfolio Choice," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(01), pages 76-101, January. [Downloadable!]
  26. Philippe Weil, 1992. "Equilibrium Asset Prices With Undiversifiable Labor Income Risk," NBER Working Papers 3975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  27. Weil, Philippe, 1989. "The equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 401-421, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  28. Mankiw, N. Gregory, 1986. "The equity premium and the concentration of aggregate shocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 211-219, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  29. Telmer, Chris I, 1993. " Asset-Pricing Puzzles and Incomplete Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1803-32, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  30. Runkle, David E., 1991. "Liquidity constraints and the permanent-income hypothesis : Evidence from panel data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 73-98, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Huggett, Mark, 1993. "The risk-free rate in heterogeneous-agent incomplete-insurance economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 953-969. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

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. Narayana R. Kocherlakota & Luigi Pistaferri, 2004. "Asset Pricing Implications of Pareto Optimality with Private Information," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000508, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? RePEc data is maintained by each archive holder on its own website. Nothing is held centrally.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-6.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.